


your dust from mine

by MithrilWren



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Angst, Child Abuse, Child Neglect, Death of Parental Figure, Fairy Tale Retellings, Fantasy Racism, Found Family, M/M, Mistaken Identity, Royalty, True Love's Kiss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-22
Updated: 2020-08-30
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:20:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 18
Words: 74,490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23789239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MithrilWren/pseuds/MithrilWren
Summary: Fjord was born to more than a servant’s life, but doesn’t know it. Prince Caduceus is betrothed to a man, but the wrong one.A tale of mistaken identities, fairytale foolery, and the power of true love’s kiss.(Or. a loose retelling of ‘The Goose Girl’, with some decidedly CR twists.)
Relationships: Caduceus Clay/Fjord
Comments: 1035
Kudos: 720





	1. Gemels (The Room)

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Fjorclay Week 2020, Prompt: Fairytales/Mythology. This was my favourite fairytale growing up, and it's been so fun to adapt it to the CR universe :)

Fjord’s first memories are of darkness.

There are few lights in his world. A little window, with the shutters drawn by day. A candle at his bedside, always left burning, but no books to read by its sputtering flame. A pale globe, and two green orbs sunken within, who he comes to call ‘Nurse’ when he is old enough to speak. 

Fjord learns all other words slowly, with no one there to teach him.

What bright moments he has, they are all surrounding Sabian. He is the only spot of colour in Fjord’s grey life - clad in blues and greens, and ever on Nurse’s hip. He is ‘loved’ by her, though that word is one of the last to enter his vocabulary. The first time Nurse speaks it, her hands are holding a different child, but her eyes are on him. 

“You are loved, Sabian,” she murmurs into chestnut curls, and from her eyes he learns the meaning of _rejection._ “Never forget that,” and he learns the meaning of _bitterness._ “You deserve the world,” and he learns the meaning of _hatred._

During the quietest nights, he drags his stool over to the window and presses his nose to the bottom of the glass, peering out between the slats into the unknown realm beyond. He sees strange things - tall pillars with rustling, flat-fronded garb, grey waves rolling onto an empty expanse of jagged cliffs. He brings the candlestick with him, but the light can’t reach far enough to show him the colours of all the shapes he sees. Still, he stands there on tiptoe, night after night, watching moonlight crest the peaks of white-capped swells, and wondering if there will come an age when Nurse will hoist him on her hip like Sabian, and carry him out into the world beyond his room.

* * *

_The queen died in childbirth, or so they say. The child that killed her was sickly and weak, and needed to be sequestered away from the world for his own health. That, too, is part of the tale: the one that keeps the rabble of Port Damali from clamouring at the door to the castle keep, asking where their newborn heir might be._

_The king now rules from a dais of one throne, draped in the same crimson as the blood that enrobed his milky hands as he brought the knife to his wife’s throat. She was as fair as he, while she lived, but all the red in the world could not disguise the colour of her child’s skin when he emerged from her body. All forest green, boisterous and strong. The baby’s cry mocked him for being heartier than his own._

_He could not abide an adulteress to share his bed, no more than he would suffer another man’s child to sit on his throne._

_He locked the child away, and prayed nightly for a solution to his troubles._

_Another child was born in the castle, eight months before the queen died in childbirth (so they say, so they-) and his mother, a servant, was still with milk when the queen died. Having no true mother to nurse him, the unwanted prince was given to the servant to raise. This she did, in the strictest sense, but she had no love left in her for anything but her own son. It infuriated her to her very core, that her child would live and die in poverty and servitude, while she was meant to give up her own son’s raising for the sake of a half-breed bastard: this hideous boy, who born to any other family would have been left at the orphanage to rot with all the other driftwood strays. The resentment poisoned her heart, day by day._

_The years passed, and what excuse could the king offer, that the child had not yet been seen? The people said he did not speak his name out of grief for the mother who gave it, but the whole kingdom ached for their promised prince. He could deny them much longer. At last, the king went to his trusted advisors, and asked what he should do._

_“Find a younger wife, who will bear you a new son,” one said, but the king was weary of women, who would only betray his trust. “Say the boy died, and name a new heir,” said another, but if the son dies, so does his family name, and his legacy too. “Claim him,” said the third, “and let the people decide if they will accept a bastard prince or not.”_

_It was an intolerable suggestion, but what else was there to do?_

_The king went that night to the child’s bedroom, and laid eyes upon his not-child for the first time in five years. The boy was sleeping with one chubby finger in his mouth, suckling softly at the pale imitation of a mother’s sustainance._

_He had hoped that the years would have softened his anger, enough to bear the indignity of what was required of him, but the fires only mounted as he looked upon the boy’s green skin, the beginnings of tusks caging the child’s thumb._

_From behind, stealing from her silent vigil to the king’s side, the wetnurse crept up._

_“I have a son,” she murmured in the king’s ear. “Around the same age. Nobody outside this keep knows his face.” He frowned, wrinkles deepening with each treacherous word she spoke. “My Sabian is a smart boy, unlike this dull one. He barely knows his letters, even at this age. But Sabian, I can make him_ understand.”

_“Understand what?” the king growled, offended by her impertinence. She did not flinch back from his rising anger._

_“His duty.” She ducked her head into a modest bow. “I only ask, in exchange for my son, that you raise him as your own, and cast this one aside.”_

_The king scoffed, then stalked off, furious at the woman’s presumption. To replace one man’s bastard with another… that was no solution at all._

_But as he slept that night, he dreamt many frightful dreams: of orcish hordes on his doorstep, and an empty future, and his name crumbled along with his castle into the surf. Then he dreamt something sweeter: of another child, with his own fair skin, riding proudly on horseback through the wide streets of Port Damali._

_It was no solution, but it was better than nothing at all._

_When he awoke at last, he called the wetnurse to his bedchamber._

_“The child will be mine, and mine alone,” he declared, as though the idea was his own. “You may instruct him, but he will be_ my _son. My claim over him will be absolute, from this day forward.”_

_“I understand,” said the nurse._

So nothing has changed, _she thought._

_They shook hands, and that was the last time they spoke of the matter._

* * *

Sabian has been gone a week, and Fjord misses him dearly. He begs Nurse to tell him when his friend will return, and she smiles - a first, directed towards him - and says that he needn’t wait long. That soon, he will be leaving this place, and to think on that instead. 

Any thoughts of Sabian’s absence flee Fjord’s mind. There’s no room for them amidst the excitement that keeps him up to all hours, bouncing between the window and the bed, until the tallow of his candlestick runs low and he’s forced to sit as still as he can in the darkness. No one has been in to replace it in days, but he doesn’t think much of that either: a small aberration, in a rapidly shifting world of possibilities.

There are leaves - _leaves,_ he knows the word now - bending towards his window, and he will see them, and touch them, and the water too. Fjord wonders what it will feel like, to slip his feet into the ocean for the first time. Will it be like the copper-bottom bath, slippery and cold, or warm like the stone floor of his bedroom on the longest days of summer, when sunlight slips between the slats and leaves patches of heat in little rows? There are so many things to look forward to, so many questions, and answers within his grasp.

When Nurse returns, she hands him new clothes. Fjord wrinkles his nose at the fabric. They’re scratchy, and smell strange, and he misses the loose cotton of his pajamas the moment he pulls them over his head. One small hand nearly goes through a hole at the elbow, and he frowns all the more. 

“Why can’t I wear _my_ clothes?” he whines.

“Hush up,” Nurse snaps, and the cuff to his ear is so unexpected it nearly brings him to tears. Fjord clutches his hands to the side of his head, not understanding, as she grabs him by the forearm and pulls him out the door. 

They’re walking so fast that he can’t even stop to say hello to the tree outside his window, or stare for longer than a moment at the sea, bright and gleaming in the cold morning air. But if he walks fast enough, Nurse doesn’t pull so hard on his arm, so Fjord bounds along at her back, working as hard as he can to keep pace with her heavy stride. 

There are no other travellers in the hallways, but a clamour is happening somewhere outside the walls - many voices raised all together, and the hurt and confusion he felt about his still smarting ear fades away as they start to angle in the direction of the sound. _People,_ he thinks joyously, _I’m going to meet_ people. 

The first sight of the blue sky, unshuttered at last, takes his breath away. Though Nurse pulls and pulls at his arm, he cannot be moved from his open-mouthed awe, frozen on the stone steps of the castle keep. Everything is so _colourful._ He looks down at his own skin, and sees for the first time its shade reflected in the ground beneath his feet, and in the oaks that grow mightily along the ramparts. He pulls himself from Nurse’s grasp and falls to his knees in the dirt, running his hands over the verdant shades of grass, and laughing in delight at the way the blades tickle his palms. It seems, in that moment, that they’re greeting him, and he says hello back, in a quiet voice that no one else can hear. 

Nurse doesn’t tell him to wipe off his dusty knees, but she does take his hand again, and leads him on, towards the voices beyond the wall.

He didn’t know there were so many faces in the world - of all shapes, all pallors, and Fjord longs to run through the crowd and say hello to every person he sees. He cares little for the ceremony on the raised wooden platform, too fascinated by the crowd that watches on. But as they pass by, nobody pays attention to Fjord. He tugs on one lady’s sleeve with his free hand and she looks down, but draws her arm back quickly as soon as she sets eyes on him, then turns to whisper to the man at her side. “Urchin,” he hears, and “green-blood” too, in the scant seconds before he’s dragged out of earshot. He knows the words in shape, but in context: not why they would be said with such contempt, or with such a fierce glare at his back.

The man she brings him to hangs at the back of the crowd - a rugged figure, with thin, sallow lips and the shadow of sinewy muscles beneath his clothes. “A charity case,” Nurse says, and shoves Fjord forward. “From the orphanage.”

Though he wanted desperately to meet new people only a moment ago, he doesn’t want to meet this man. His eyes aren’t kind, as they look him up and down. His sneer reminds Fjord of the wolves in the stories Sabian so loves, the ones that Fjord pretends to like because he doesn’t want Sabian to know he’s afraid: all yellowed, brittle teeth, hungry to tear errant shepherd boys apart. He shrinks back, more frightened now than he ever was of Sabian’s tales, but Nurse pushes him forward again, and he has no choice but to go where her hands direct.

“And what do you want _me_ to do with him?”

“Whatever you see fit. I don’t care. Find a use for him.”

The man frowns, and he prods at Fjord’s chubby cheek with a dirty fingernail. Fjord forces himself to remain still. “He’s soft - not a day of work on him. What use have I got for a boy like that?”

“Put him to work, then, and the harder the better. Gods know he needs it, the trouble he’s given me...” Fjord opens his mouth to protest - he’s been good, he _knows_ he has - but closes it again, fearing another cuff on the ear. 

_Hush up._

He’s _trying._

“There’s always hard work that needs doing round here,” the man muses, and Nurse nods, relieved. A cheer erupts, rippling down from the dais to the back of the crowd, and her head whips towards the stage. Her eyes are shining, Fjord realizes, and he follows her gaze. He needs to squint to see it, but he can just barely make out a familiar face on the platform. His pale skin looks strange, painted in rouges, and set below a glittering crown, but he can still recognize his only friend. 

“Finally getting to learn the prince’s name, huh? Did they really need to wait so long? Still, _Sabian._ Sounds strong enough. A royal name, if I’ve ever heard one.”

_“Sabian,”_ Nurse breathes, and she is too slow to hide the tear that falls onto her cheek. She does not look back at the man, or Fjord, as she wanders away from them both. Fjord reaches out a hand towards her, but the man pulls him back, and his grip is stronger even than hers. He thinks now that this man is not so much a wolf, but a serpent. His long, thin fingers coil around Fjord’s forearm, and he is inescapably _caught._

“Be careful of him. He’s a liar,” Nurse says dreamily over her shoulder, not truly looking back. “Don’t trust a thing he says.” Fjord is too afraid to speak a word in his own defence, though he’s _not…_ he doesn’t _think_ he is...

“They always are,” scoffs the man, then turns to Fjord. “Do you know who I am, boy?” Fjord shakes his head, eyes still following Nurse as she disappears into the throng of the crowd. “I’m the groundsmaster of this castle, and as long as you do exactly as I say, when I say it, we’ll have no trouble between the two of us. Do you understand me?” Fjord nods, biting his lip to keep it still. He can’t see Nurse anymore. “Hard workers earn their rewards, hmm? And poor workers, their punishments.” His fingers coil tighter, and Fjord flinches in his grasp. “Come on, boy, I know you’re no mute. What’s your name?”

“Fjord,” he says. It sounds strange to his ears - he’s not sure he’s ever spoken his own name aloud.

“That’s your common one. And your last?”

Fjord shrugs. He doesn’t know who gave him his common name, and doesn’t know if he has a last. It never mattered, before.

“Then I’ll give you one.” The man’s sneer grows wilder, vindictively pleased. “Your parents tossed you aside, and who can blame them?” He tweaks at the nub of Fjord’s tusk, and Fjord closes his lips, self-conscious, though he doesn’t know yet what he’s meant to be ashamed of. “A half-breed like you, and soft at that! But I think I can fashion you into something useful. Like the stone that holds the foundation, I’ll chip you down, until your shape is better suited to your position. How do you like that, boy? Shall I call you Fjord Stone?”

He shakes his head vigourously. All he’s known is stone: stone walls and stone floors, and a stone ceiling above his bed. He can name their exact count, all the stones that made up his world. He would rather be Fjord Tree, Fjord Sky, Fjord of the Sea that he’s longed so often to touch. Anything but _Stone._

The man throws back his head and laughs, and the sound is as cold as winter. When the laugh dies away, his look is just as cold, with no trace of mirth in his eyes.

“You have spirit, Fjord Stone. I like that. But you will find that what I like more is _obedience._ ” The hand on Fjord’s arm slithers up to his throat, pressing harder and harder, until he is gasping for air, and clawing at the calloused fingers with his nails. “I will ask you again. Do you like the name I gave you?”

Black spots dance in his vision, and he gasps out what he can, with what little breath remains.

“Yes,” Fjord whispers, and proves himself a liar after all.


	2. Espalier (The Castle)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mind the tags - this chapter is where some of the gnarlier ones come up!

The years pass slowly for Fjord. Each season takes an age, with nothing but harder chores and colder weather to look forward to. 

The adjustment isn’t easy. There is so much he doesn’t know. Every experience is new, sharp-tinted by reality rather than the indistinct haze of Sabian’s stories. Some newness he delights in, like the smell of fresh hay in the stable, or the sight of sun-bright clouds above the walls. Even the ache in his muscles, well-worked for the first time after years in atrophy, comes to be a source of pleasure. 

But the hardships outweigh the delights, and though his world is full of new faces at last, the loneliness never fades. People shy back from him, turning up their noses. It only takes a year for the words to sink in, until he understands that ‘orc’ means ‘bad’, and ‘bad’ means ‘him’. None of the other servants - and that is what he is, what he has always been, according to the man - will talk to Fjord, unless it’s in service of a tease or a jeer. So he stays close to the man, the one Nurse gave him to, because as cruel as he is, he, at least, will speak Fjord’s name. 

And names, he decides, are important. Once he’s been moved into common quarters, once he shares his meals in the servant hall instead of having them delivered on a tray, once he realizes that the hand-me-down rags he wears are his only clothes, ‘Fjord’ is the last thing left that’s his alone.

The man was honest, at least, on the day they met, and Fjord learns to live with one constant, in a world that changes faster than he can keep up with: obedience is met by reward, and failure by punishment. But the man’s instructions are vague, and ill-defined, and Fjord tries to meet them but cannot stop himself from failing, no matter how hard he works. Many times, he’s left to interpret his day’s tasks on a single grunted word. He grows accustomed to spending the whole day in ruins of anxiety, not knowing whether the tasks he’s chosen are what he’s meant to do. 

Punished for not understanding, punished for asking for help, punished for shoddy work, even if he guesses right. Sometimes, he wonders if the man knows that what he expects is impossible. Other times, Fjord thinks that the vaguity is on purpose, and the all-too-infrequent rewards - a roasted potato, an hour of spare time - are merely tricks, to keep him from running away. 

Sometimes, he wonders if the man just likes hurting him.

(He knows that the man has a name. Fjord hears it whispered at night, in murmurs that ripple across the dormitory like the ocean waves he still hasn’t seen up close - sometimes reverent, sometimes fearful, always _quiet._ He doesn’t say it aloud. Names are important, and he doesn’t want to give the man one. If he does, then the only hope he has will disappear: that this is all some nightmare, and one day he’ll wake up in his little wooden bed. Alone, but safe once more.)

Still, it’s not all misery. There are bright spots amidst the darkness. Though the man won’t let him leave the castle walls, he finds solace in the greenish trappings of the grounds. While he’s still small enough, he hides in the boughs and roots of the trees, or in the shadow of the ivy-laced statue by the southern gate, its stone visage too long decayed to make out the woman’s face or the shape of the scripted letters at her feet. This close to the sea, the soil smells of salty brine, and makes a softer pillow than the straw he sleeps on at night. 

The grass still greets him when no one else will, and invites him to lay down and close his eyes a while, and be at rest. 

The older he gets, the less time he has to sneak off, and the harder it is to hide from reproachful eyes that ask _why are you here, in_ my _presence, why do you_ exist, but those moments of solace give him the strength to persevere.

And, at very rare times, Sabian reappears, and those days are the brightest of all. 

Fjord finally understands why he left so often when they were young. Sabian is a prince, and there must have been royal duties he had to attend to then, just as there are duties now that keep him from Fjord. But occasionally, Sabian finds him in the darkest hours of night: the lone candle to Fjord’s solitude. He brings gifts of words: stories of parties and fine meals and a father’s love. Any time together is spent in devotion, with Fjord pouring out his admiration in return for Sabian’s voice. Sabian likes him still, or seems to, and though his stories grow shorter, and his visits less frequent as the years drag on, Fjord still watches for him by night, as eager as the birds who long the morning sun, to tell them it’s time to awake.

It’s at the end of a particularly hard day that Fjord begs Sabian to find Nurse and ask her to take him back. Even if it means being locked in that room once again, he can take it. He _can,_ only he can’t take _this_ anymore. 

When Sabian refuses, claiming he hasn’t seen the woman in years, Fjord switches to a different tact: desperate, even in the face of Sabian’s growing discomfort.

“Then I’ll run away,” he pleads, “If you help me, I can get away from here, from _him-”_ But Sabian’s eyes have already grown dark, and he shies back from Fjord. Fjord closes his mouth abruptly, hiding his teeth in case they’re the reason for Sabian’s sudden fright. He can’t cover the dark bruise on his cheek or the grime beneath his nails, but he can at least keep his awful fangs hidden away.

“I can’t help you,” Sabian hisses. “Nobody can help you. You can leave this life, but you can’t change what you _are._ You will always be a servant, and I will _always_ be a prince. Don’t you ever forget that.”

Then Sabian stalks away into the night, and doesn’t appear again for months. Fjord is sick with worry that he’s lost him for good, and overcome with thoughts of how to make amends, if he ever gets the chance.

When Sabian returns at last it’s with a smile, and a tender brush of fingers to Fjord’s unmarked cheek. He asks if things are better, then, and Fjord lies and says _yes._ He doesn’t tell him about all the bruises he can’t see: the smudges of finger marks on his forearm, the blisters on his feet, the stinging sickle cut along his side. Sabian doesn’t want to know any of that, and Fjord knows better how to listen, now. The man has taught him well: how to hear the words beneath the words, and how to say the right ones back. In every question lies the answer - he needs only pay close enough attention.

The lie seems to please Sabian, and Fjord gulps back the terror he’s lived in for the past three months, and grins a closed mouth smile to match Sabian’s own.

The year that Sabian stops coming altogether is the year that Fjord finally earns enough of the man’s trust to leave the castle walls. He’s thirteen by then, and already resenting the new inches on his gangling frame. The more space he takes up, the harder it is to avoid peoples’ stares, and he walks with a permanent slouch to compensate. 

The man is older too, but no less harsh a taskmaster for the grandfatherly grey on his head. Fjord is infinitely glad he never told him of his longing for the sea, because the first outing is still framed as a punishment. His task - porting kegs of fine wine from the wharf to the castle gate - is backbreaking work, and Fjord has never been so glad to do a task so miserable in his life. 

The salty smell of the air, mingled with fish guts and seaweed, grows stronger as he walks the sloping streets of Port Damali towards the docks. He finds different sorts of people in the wharf than the ones he’s met in the castle - sailors and merchants and lowlifes skulking in the alleyways - and like a child again, he’s taken aback by how vast the world can be, and how little of it he’s truly seen. 

Fjord makes haste to finish his work, but while the last barrel is being readied he slips off, just for a few minutes, and finds a quiet spot along the dock to sit. The sun is just beginning to dip as he slips off his shoes and dangles his feet into the water. It’s not as cold as he imagined, but cool enough to soothe his inflamed soles, and as he looks out onto the infinite horizon, with black-dotted ships breaking past the setting sun, he feels at home in a way he didn’t know an orphan could.

It’s at the docks that Fjord discovers the first name that would be important to him, after Sabian.

Fjord is just shy of fifteen when he meets Vandran. Or, more accurately, he runs into him as he pounds through the streets in a desperate pelt to get back to the castle before the man notices his absence. Not that it will make a difference to his punishment, not when he’s _misread the address_ on the parchment he was meant to deliver-

(He had tried to ask another servant for help, and they just sneered at him, saying “Can’t you _read?”_ and he _tried,_ but the letters get all jumbled in his head and he doesn’t understand how people do it so _easily-_ )

He smacks into a broad chest and tumbles to the ground, already apologizing before his hands hit the cobblestone. 

“No harm done,” says the stranger, and offers Fjord a hand up. He eyes it dubiously and doesn’t move, fearing a trick. The stranger withdraws the hand after a moment, folding his arms instead in front of his chest. Fjord pushes himself to his feet slowly, while he waits for the stranger to walk off in a huff. But instead, he looks Fjord up and down, taking in the well-patched clothes and mottled green of his skin. His grey eyes linger long on the bruises dusting Fjord’s wrist, and Fjord moves his hands behind his back, eager to be out of his too-keen sight. “Where are you off to, in such a mighty hurry?”

Fjord tries to read the correct answer from his eyes, but the stranger’s look is inscrutable. “The castle,” he mumbles, when no better lie occurs to him. 

“Mm. You work there, son?” Fjord nods, and the stranger’s easy stance shifts into something straighter, and sterner. Fjord takes a half step back. “Who do you work for?”

Reluctantly, he mumbles off the man’s name, his throat working around the bubbling anxiety that comes with the telling. He’ll be late now, on top of stupid, and he doesn’t want to think about what awaits him when he returns empty-handed.

The stranger’s expression turns just as sour as Fjord’s stomach. “I see,” he says, with all the softness of a rising storm. Fjord doesn’t know the cause of his anger, or a way to placate it, so he fastens himself in place and waits to ride out whatever ire will be heaped upon him. 

“Get you along, now. It’ll be dark soon.”

Letting out a breath, Fjord nods again, and darts past the stranger before he has a chance to change his mind. But when Fjord chances a glance back, he’s still staring after him, his eyes thoughtful.

He only learns the stranger’s name a few days later, when the man calls him over from the broken fence he’s meant to mend. Fjord has learned not to trust any smile of his benefactor’s, but this one is different - still mean as ever, but tinged with greed as well. 

“An old friend of mine came to visit last night, by the name of Vandran. Did you know that?” Fjord shakes his head. He has no idea who the man means, let alone why this ‘Vandran’ would have come to the castle. “Seems you made quite an impression on him, down by the docks. Wanted to know if ‘the strong lad with orcish blood’ was available for hire. Offered me seven pieces of silver a day for your services. Do you know what I said to that, boy?” Fjord shakes his head again, swallowing hard. This was a favourite game of the man’s: asking him questions he couldn’t answer. It was always better to say nothing at all. “I told him a hundred gold, and he could buy you outright. Imagine my surprise, when he agreed on the spot.” The man chuckles. “Can’t imagine what a fine, upstanding captain would want with a cabin boy that looks like you,” he simpers, his grin lascivious, “but men have all sorts of tastes, I suppose.” 

If Fjord was in a calmer state of mind, he might have been frightened by the man’s implication, but his head is spinning too fast to keep up with his words. This stranger, this _Vandran,_ wants him for- for what? To work for him? And at that price… 

Fjord’s been to the markets now. He knows that a loaf of bread is five copper; a good pair of boots, maybe a gold piece, and four silver on top. A hundred gold is a princely sum. 

Who would pay that much, for him?

“Don’t stand there with your mouth hanging open, Stone. Go get your things. The _Tide’s Breath_ expects you by nightfall.”

It’s only when he’s standing at the dock with his meagre possessions slung over his shoulder, staring at the massive tri-masted barque anchored in the bay, that it begins to sink in. That he’s _free._ Free of the castle, free of the man. That he no longer has to steal minutes of time to linger by the ocean, because it’s his home now, and there’s a whole new world before him to explore.

...That is, so long as he convinces Vandran that he’s good enough to keep.

The first few weeks at sea are heavy with excitement and worry both. He takes to ship life with abandon, relishing the whip of wind in his hair and the rope-burned callouses on his palms, the fresh fish caught off the bow and a hammock for sleep instead of hay. The other crew don’t seem to care about his green skin or tusks so long as he puts in a hard day’s work and listens carefully to their instructions. They clap him on the back for a job well done, and invite him to sing along as they pull into port, until he knows the sea shanties as well as any sailor aboard. When they ask his name, he tells them ‘Fjord’. No one presses for a last. He is _Fjord,_ plain and simple, with no _Stone_ to weigh him down. 

And still, the fear returns every time they draw too close to Port Damali. Every return from a delivery to Nicodranas, or another town along the Menagerie Coast, is accompanied by a familiar tightness in his chest. Vandran seems to like him well enough, but Fjord is under no illusion that his kindness is unconditional. He holds onto the respite with cautious hope, while he waits for the other shoe to drop. If he keeps working hard, and doesn’t give Vandran a reason to send him back, maybe...

The moment he’s been fearing comes a little more than a month into his new employment, in the cramped confines of Vandran’s office. They’ve been spending time there in the mornings before Fjord’s shift begins: sequestering a few hours away together, for Vandran to teach Fjord his letters. 

He’d been resistant to the suggestion at first, nervous that he’d be just as slow as Nurse claimed, but after only a few meetings, Fjord grew to love the lessons - not just for Vandran’s undivided attention, but because the learning itself makes him hungry for more. Though he’s no genius, he works as steadily at the primers set before him as he does at hauling jibs and swabbing decks, while Vandran keeps his logs on the other side of the desk, noting stocks of provisions and adjustments to their course and only leaning over to correct Fjord’s work when necessary. 

On one of these mornings, he reaches too quickly for a piece of blotting fabric, and his elbow knocks into Vandran’s unstoppered inkwell, sending the bottle tipping straight onto his logbook and soaking the pages below.

Vandran stands abruptly as the black ink spreads in a torrent over the parchment, his chair shrieking against the floorboards, and it’s only when Fjord gathers the courage to drop his arms from his face that he realizes the rapid movement was to rescue his suit from the spilling ink, and not to ready a blow. 

He still shrinks back as Vandran walks around the side of the desk, towards him. 

“Sorry,” he says, eyes fixed to the floor. “Sorry-” His breath is coming too fast, short gasps between apologies as Vandran takes one knee and reaches out towards Fjord’s downturned face. He flinches, expecting a slap, but Vandran’s hand cups his cheek, turning his face up till they’re eye to eye. 

“Be more careful,” he says, his voice firm, but not enraged. Fjord stares at him, uncomprehending, and Vandran pats his cheek lightly before drawing back. 

“It was an honest mistake, Fjord. I wouldn’t blame you for that, nor any member of my crew.”

He can’t accept it. That a mistake, as honest as it might be, wouldn’t be punished is near to incomprehensible. But after Vandran shakes out what ink he can into the sea and begins to recopy the ruined sheets, the lesson goes on without another word on the matter. Fjord’s shift comes, then the next day’s lesson, and there’s still no retribution - no punishment.

Vandran was, impossibly, telling the truth. 

Right then and there, Fjord decides that this is the kind of man he wants to be. Firm, but fair. Stern when he needs to be, but never cruel. Fjord stops fearing being given back to the castle, and starts pouring himself into becoming the best model of his mentor he can be. He learns to stand tall instead of slouching, letting his shoulders sink back and his broad chest puff out. He practices smiling with an easy grin, the kind that fetches steep discounts and rounded flattery in every port. He dresses better - or as well as his wage can buy - keeps his hair short, even adopts the smooth drawl of seafarers instead of the clipped pomp of the courtiers he grew up with. 

And he is… happy.

For the first time in his life, Fjord is _happy._

For fifteen blissful years - a _lifetime_ \- he sails the Menagerie Coast with Vandran’s crew, and though there are times that the routine grows dull, and the same docks and merchants become wearily accustomed, he rarely longs for more. He has the sea, and friends to call his own, and someone to look up to. It’s a better life than Fjord could have ever imagined for himself.

He barely even thinks of what he used to be anymore. The castle is a distant memory, and Sabian too - for who would believe that a rugged sailor was once the confidante of the crown prince of the land? It sounds fantastical, even to his own ears. At thirty, he’s been so long away from that life that even the man can be put aside as a childhood nightmare - the kind that still wakes him on the occasional night, choking out spit that tastes like iron and seawater, but can be quickly forgotten in the daytime hours. 

They make the same runs, he wakes at the same bell, he reads in his spare time, and everything but the weather stays the same, year after year. And Fjord is _happy._

Until, one day, change catches up with him, in the form of a summons waiting for the _Tide’s Breath_ at the Port Damali dock. 

Vandran goes off to the castle to answer the letter, and leaves Fjord - his quartermaster now, for an uncomplicated three years - to guard the _Tide’s Breath_ in his stead. When he returns, it’s with a queer look in his eye: not troubled, per se, but contemplative.

“Tell the crew to unload what we have in the hold,” Vandran says, taking Fjord by the arm and leading him towards his office. “The _Donelle_ will take it on to Swavain in our stead.”

Fjord balks. In all his time sailing with Vandran, they’ve never once missed a delivery. “Are we putting into port? Repairs I don’t know about?” he posits, though he’s certain they’re in shipshape condition - he supervised the last careening himself, and that was only a month ago. 

“We’ve got a new assignment from the castle, and it’s a hell of a changeup.” Vandran closes the door to his office, and turns to look at Fjord in the relative silence of the bulkheads. “Turns out our young Prince Sabian is getting married.” Fjord startles at the name, a chill of anticipation passing through him, like a ghost emerging from the wall. “The happy groom is some other royal from clear round the far side of Wildemount. It’s an arranged thing, as I understand it - probably some political maneuvering involved that’d go clear over my head, but it doesn’t matter much to us the reason for the union. All we’re tasked with is getting the prince and his retinue to Savalir as quickly as possible, which is just fine by me. I’d like to get back to our usual schedule before that damned Adella swoops in on our routes.”

“Oh,” says Fjord faintly. “I- that’s different, you’re right about that.”

Vandran scrubs a hand over his bearded face. “Wouldn’t have been kinder to give us a little more warning,” he grouses, sitting down and frowning at the wall. Finally, he looks to Fjord, as though only just remembering he was still there. “Get to it, Fjord. We leave by week’s end. There’s a lot to do before then, if we’re meant to be ready to have a royal aboard.”

“Right,” Fjord says. He hurries off to start the preparations, but his mind is still scattered.

Sabian is going to be on this ship. Part of his world once more, at least for a little while.

He… he has no idea how to feel about that.


	3. Ballochory (The Ship)

The prince’s retinue is far larger than any of the _Tide’s Breath_ crew expected, once they get the final tally from the castle, and it’s Fjord’s job to find space for them all below deck. The task keeps him well occupied, rearranging hammocks and arguing with surly crewmembers over the appropriate recompense for four weeks of discomfort, and in some ways that’s a blessing. He doesn’t have to count down the hours until the royal party arrives, worrying over what words he’ll say to Sabian, if he says anything at all.

Now that he’s had friends, _true_ friends, at sea, he’s not convinced that Sabian was ever truly his. They were never peers in the way he is with his shipmates. The men and women he shares bread with every day don’t accept him only under the cover of night. They don’t couch their words of greeting in secrecy, or act ashamed when another person draws near, like Fjord’s presence is something illicit, that needs to be hidden. 

But then again, could a prince ever truly accept a servant as his companion? He was probably lucky to get as much as he got, for as long as he got it.

And still, Fjord’s breath catches in his throat when he catches sight of Prince Sabian striding across the gangplank. Everyone is out on the deck to welcome the prince, clad in as formal dress as they own, but Sabian puts all their poor efforts to shame. His coat is a frock of costly crimson velvet, his hair an elegant swoop of chestnut waves, brushed back into a high ponytail that dangles just above the frilled lace of his collar. While time has made Fjord’s skin rugged, marred by weather spots and the remnants of cuts that didn’t quite heal right, Sabian’s complexion is still boyish. His broad shoulders speak of trained swordsmanship, and his posture of equally practiced etiquette, and altogether he is not a delicate man, but he is _fine._

What confidence Fjord gained in the past fifteen years seems little in Sabian’s presence, and he has to work not to duck his head as the prince passes by. 

“Welcome aboard, Prince Sabian.” Vandran’s greeting is the picture of hospitality, though Fjord can guess at the frustration that lies undecipherable beneath his friendly demeanor. The journey to Savalir will take near to a month, and then the same for the return to Port Damali. That’s the bulk of summer gone, and with it any chance at the largest hauls of the season. They’ll need to sail straight into mid-winter to make up the loss. Still, what can they do? Refuse the castle’s demand? That option was never discussed; it was never even on the table. Vandran will play the role of willing host for now, and they’ll complain about the crown’s ridiculous expectations in private on the way home, as they always do. 

“Allow me to introduce my crew.” 

Vandran makes the rounds, naming each of Fjord’s shipmates while Sabian nods in turn, even brightly greeting a few - the cook, who he thanks in advance for the excellent food Sabian hopes he’ll provide, and the navigator, on whose speedy course he prays she’ll deliver him true to his new home. Charming to the last, and cheery too - disarmingly so. Fjord watches him closely, but can’t find any hint of dishonesty in his words. As far as Fjord can tell, Sabian is genuinely happy to be here. 

“And, of course, my quartermaster and second-in-command, Fjord,” Vandran says, finally reaching his place in the line. He bows politely, keeping his face perfectly neutral, and hoping the prince will speak first, to tell him what sort of person Fjord is meant to be to him. Are they minor acquaintances, old confidantes, or complete strangers? He can play all three roles; it belongs to Sabian to say which one is most appropriate. 

But Sabian doesn’t speak to him at all. In fact, he turns away from Fjord, barely glancing his direction before walking back to Vandran and asking to be shown to his chambers. In the split second where their eyes meet, Fjord catches a torment of emotions in Sabian’s expression: confusion, anger, fear, each so brief he can’t begin to tease them apart. A moment later, Fjord is sure he imagined what he saw, for Sabian’s friendly grin is back in place by the time his body is fully turned. He thanks Vandran for the use of the captain’s quarters during his time aboard, and bids adieu to the rest of the crew, with no indication that his cheerful smile ever slipped.

Sabian doesn’t once look Fjord’s direction as he makes for the quarterdeck, and that’s the last any of them see of the prince that day.

It’s an answer, at least. So even though his stomach curls into itself that night, after they’ve put to sea, thinking about the way Sabian singled him out for disdain amongst all the other crew, Fjord reminds himself that this is the easiest role he could have been given. Avoiding Sabian will be simple enough. He has duties aplenty to keep them apart. 

And really, what did he expect? A joyful reunion? A familiar pat on the shoulder, or an invitation to reminisce about old times? Fjord laughs himself to sleep at his own foolishness. 

When he dreams, the chuckle sounds more like the man’s laugh - mocking and cruel.

The next morning he’s in the mess, eating breakfast and feeling much better about the whole affair with a full stomach, when Sabian unexpectedly appears. Fjord is clued in to his presence by the ominous creak of all the chairs in the room suddenly rocking back, every eye turning to stare at the royal in their midst. Fjord hastily starts shovelling the last of his oatmeal into his mouth, hoping to bolt before Sabian catches sight of him. A manicured hand on his shoulder stops his spoon halfway to his bowl.

“Do you mind if I join you?” 

Now all the eyes in the room are staring at _him._ Fjord blinks up at the prince, conscious of the oats still clinging to the corner of his mouth, and too shocked to do anything but swallow the gruel down with a hasty gulp. Sabian promptly sits, as though Fjord had already given an answer. 

“I was hoping you’d have time for a tour this morning? It might give us a chance to catch up.” 

Speechless, Fjord can only nod.

“Excellent! Could I have a bowl as well?” Sabian calls out to a passing shipman, who hides his scowl admirably - nobody is _served_ in the mess, and any sailor not willing to fetch their own food would be jeered off the ship. 

But Sabian isn’t a sailor, is he?

By the time the prince’s food arrives, Fjord has finished wolfing down his own portion. They set off for the upper deck side by side, Sabian clutching his bowl of gruel to his chest and taking dainty bites as they walk. It’s such a strange pairing of baseness and dignity that Fjord almost laughs, before he remembers who he’s with.

“I’m sorry I didn’t say hello properly yesterday,” Sabian says, giving a little wave with his spoon to the boatswain as they pass him on the stairwell. If Sabian is ashamed to be seen with Fjord, he’s certainly not acting like it now. “I was just so surprised! It’s been so long - the last place I expected to find you again was on the eave of my engagement.”

‘Surprise’ isn’t really the reaction Fjord read from Sabian yesterday, but… maybe he misinterpreted. He can’t reconcile the friendly arm Sabian slings over his shoulder with the look of… _unhappiness?_ _unease?..._ he wore at their first meeting. 

Sabian waves to another crewmember on the deck. She returns it, then raises an eyebrow at Fjord. He can’t shrug with Sabian’s arm still over his own, but he tries to convey with a look that he’s just as perplexed as she is. They all saw the snub at Vandran’s introduction yesterday, but if Sabian is happy to be seen with Fjord today, _proud,_ even… Fjord really must have misunderstood.

A bit of reckless hope filters into his chest, like a present he’d eagerly desired but didn’t dare hope for had landed suddenly in his lap. He does the rest of the tour eagerly: both nervous and childishly excited to show off his new home, to the only person who knows where he began.

In the weeks that follow, Sabian calls on him often. From his installment on the quarterdeck, the prince beckons, and Fjord can’t help but be drawn to his side, as surely as the fish to the angler light. The whole crew knows that Fjord has found favour with the prince because Sabian makes no secret of it, crowing to anyone who will listen how happy he is to be reunited with a friend he knew in his younger days. 

It should be the brightest time of Fjord’s life. This is the best Sabian has treated him since they were little children, and isn’t that exactly what he’d always wanted? And yet, the experience has its thorns as well, pricking him with uneasiness daily, especially when Sabian drops a little remark - a friendly jab, a harmless comment - that reminds him of the difference between the two of them. 

“Oh, the wind must have whittled those old tusks down. They look much less fearsome than I remember,” Sabian says offhandedly, and Fjord starts to wonder, staring at his reflection later that night, if a knife would be sharp enough to do the job that the wind hasn’t. 

“You know, I could never have gotten so far in your place - just look how much your crew respects you, even being… well, what you are!” and Fjord can’t help but listen for the whispers after that, watching his crewmates’ eyes more closely - wondering if there are hints of suspicion he’s missed, for why else would Sabian bring it up?

“Our nurse never thought you could do it, but it seems you learned your letters after all?” Sabian remarks with an encouraging smile, and Fjord’s voice grows quieter. He had been reading aloud, eager to share his favourite stories like Sabian used to do for him when they were younger, but the words stick in his throat now, jumbled once more by a sticky glut of anxiety and shame.

The more days he spends with Sabian - reading together on the balcony of the captain’s quarters, or sharing a meal at the table on the quarterdeck - the harder it is to keep his shoulders squared and his posture confident. Fjord finds himself slipping into that same awkward slouch that he wore in his youth more and more often, and wanting to spend less time with the other members of the crew. Everything he was so proud of from the last fifteen years seems tiny in the light of Sabian’s lavish presence, and every insecurity is amplified by his knowing smile - the one that reminds Fjord every day that Sabian knows him best. He, alone, understands who Fjord truly is: a servant, nothing more.

The nightmares begin to come again, and Fjord’s sleep grows more restless with each day they sail closer to Savalir.

Even with Fjord’s attention divided between his job and Sabian, Vandran and Fjord still meet daily to discuss the ship and crew. They hold court below deck now, since Sabian claimed Vandran’s office. At one of these meetings, Vandran sets aside his logbook and focuses intently on Fjord.

“You’ve been quiet lately.”

“Just tired,” Fjord hedges, half-honest, then slips into silence once more. 

“Hmm,” says Vandren, staring at him over his mug of coffee. “You’ve been spending a lot of time with the prince, I’ve noticed.” Fjord frowns, raising an eyebrow. _And the question...?_ “You have other duties to attend to than him, don’t forget.”

“Trust me, I know.” Truthfully, it’s been difficult to meet all of those duties while being at Sabian’s beck and call, which might account for some part of his exhaustion as well. “But he’s the prince. If he asks me to do something for him, how can I say no?”

“By saying ‘no’,” Vandran answers firmly. As though it’s just that easy. Fjord scoffs, and Vandran’s look grows harder. “The sea doesn’t care what kind of man you are, or what title you hold. It’ll kill you just the same if you let it.” But after a moment, his expression slips into something less severe. The sternness is broken by a flicker of a softer expression - a fondness, the kind Fjord still aches for nearly every hour of the day, though he tries not to let himself feel it. “You’re no less of a man than him, Fjord. Not while you’re on my ship.”

And of course, he can’t truly believe that, but he sees that Vandran does. Fjord gives him an appreciative smile before taking another sip of his coffee. Even if he’s not wholly sure he deserves it, knowing that Vandran is in his corner helps more than Fjord can express.

The journey is remarkably smooth, all in all. They manage to outrun most of the storms they encounter, and while black sails are spotted on the horizon once or twice, the _Tide’s Breath_ has the advantage of an experienced crew and a formidable enough hull and complement to make any pirate think twice about accosting her. They make a steady pace - though Sabian assures Vandran that a few day’s delay wouldn’t be an issue, even if they ran into trouble. The retinue has left with enough room for a few months of settling in before the actual wedding is meant to take place. 

They’re three days out from Savalir when the skies take on a sinister shade of grey, and Vandran gives the order to hunker down below deck before the rain hits. None of them want to risk a man being swept overboard by the oncoming storm. But Sabian catches Fjord’s arm on the deck as he’s double checking that the last of the rope is secure, a curious glint in his eye as he leans in to whisper in Fjord’s ear. “Meet me in my quarters, once you’re done with that.” He finishes with a wink that brings a flush to Fjord’s ears, unsure of what he’s meant to read from the gesture. “I have something I want to show you, in private.”

Vandran gave the order to remain below deck until the squall subsided. Not even Fjord is exempt from that. But Sabian is still the prince, and despite Vandran’s instructions, Fjord can’t bring himself to refuse him. 

“Alright,” Fjord murmurs back, leaning in close as well and refusing to make eye contact with any of the five other crew who are present to see, but not hear, their exchange. Sabian’s willingness to be so publically friendly with Fjord is still a constant source of confusion, but one he’s learned not to question too deeply, for the sake of his own sanity. “Give me twenty minutes.”

He goes to the captain’s quarters after the rest of the ship is battened down, praying that Vandran doesn’t catch sight of him sneaking away from the hold. Sabian isn’t in the bedroom, but he catches sight of a shadow on the balcony through the window, dark against the troubled sky. Fjord slips out onto the balcony, blinking amidst the pattering of rain that’s quickly turning into a steady downpour.

“Close the door,” Sabian says. His face is to the swollen ocean, away from Fjord. 

“It’s dangerous to be out here,” Fjord warns, but he closes the door as Sabian asked. “We should really get inside.” Sabian is far closer to the edge of the slick balcony than Fjord is comfortable with, especially with how the boat is pitching beneath their feet. “Don’t want you falling into the ocean - not sure we’d be able to find you again, not in this light.”

“Is that so? Well, I suppose you’re the sailor. You would know.” Sabian turns to him at last, and Fjord catches a glint of steel in his hand: a rapier, its gleaming silver filigree made dull by the falling rain. “But first, here’s what I wanted to show you.”

He holds out the blade, balanced on a flat palm, and Fjord steps closer, curious despite his trepidation. 

“This was a present from my father, before I left.” Sabian lifts the sword up to the faint moonlight, shifting the edge back and forth. “He gave it to me after I promised that if anyone were to threaten my life, I would use it to swiftly remove the obstacle, without showing remorse.” Sabian smirks. “And what better place to start, than with the eternal thorn in my side, the greatest danger of them all.” He hefts the blade, looking down the length to the sharpened tip, then back to Fjord. “With _you.”_

Fjord’s body moves before his mind, hurling him away from the door as the bright _sching_ of metal cuts through the air. The sword scrapes against the wood, leaving an ugly gash in the finely carved oak, and Sabian steps back. He looks down at the sword in displeasure, then again to Fjord. 

Fjord huddles against the banister, eyes wide, as the prince advances.

“Sabian?” he asks, too shocked to even attempt to run.

“It really is a shame, that you couldn’t control yourself.” Sabian swings again and Fjord ducks. The sword whistles past his ear, clipping the edge of the banister as he darts to the far end of the balcony. “I was so _good_ to you, after all, despite your position. Maybe that was my biggest mistake.”

Panting, Fjord casts about for anything to defend himself, but there’s nothing to grab onto, and Sabian blocks his only escape… save leaping into the churning water below. “Sabian-” he pleads again, holding up his hands in front of his chest.

“I couldn’t blame you for it - after all, I was the one who encouraged our time together. I thought we might be friends, as we once were. But you took it too far. How could you think, _Fjord,_ that I would give up my promised husband for your soiled mouth on mine?”

He can’t even understand, let alone believe what he’s hearing. “Whatever this is, you need to stop,” Fjord growls, shock finally given way to anger as his white knuckles grip the banister. He glances sideways - 40 feet down at least, and the water would not spare his legs the impact if he leapt, nor rescue him from slipping beneath the body of the ship and being keelhauled beneath the waves. 

If Sabian hears his words, he isn’t moved by them. “But of course you couldn’t accept that,” he continues, as though Fjord hadn’t spoken at all. “After all, we all know how orcs are: slaves to their passions, through and through.” Sabian’s grin is as wicked as his blade, the soaked strands of hair plastered to his cheeks lending him a manic, unhinged appearance. “You grew violent at my refusal. What else could I do, but defend myself?”

Sabian strikes again, and this time there’s nowhere for Fjord to run. He lurches to the side, but the blade still finds his skin, slicing a line from his forehead to his cheek and narrowly avoiding his eye. Yelping, Fjord falls back against the rail, his vision turned sodden red with a mix of blood and rainwater.

“Sabian, stop!” he cries, as the sword raises one final time-

“What the _hell_ is going on out here?”

Sabian whirls, and they both spot him at once: Vandran, frozen in the doorway in disbelief at the sight of a bloody Fjord slumped against the banister, and Prince Sabian with his blade still wet with the same ichor, held high for the killing blow. 

Vandran moves quicker than Sabian, rushing like a bull to knock the sword from his hand. Sabian sidesteps just in time to send all of Vandran’s bulk crashing into the rail, but not fast enough to keep his own footing. He falls to the deck, swearing as the blade slips from his grasp and skitters across the wooden boards. 

“Fjord! Go!” 

Vandran’s shout breaks him out of his incredulous stupor and he dives for the sword at the same moment as Sabian. But his moment of hesitation costs him the initiative, and his hands close on nothing, as the tip of a sword scrapes beneath his chin. He scrambles backwards in a crab-walk, barely pulling himself to his feet against the rails as Sabian advances once more.

“What the hell is this about?” Fjord hisses over the sound of crashing thunder. From the corner of his uninjured eye, he sees a righted Vandran begin to creep forward, ready with a heavy fist to strike across the meat of Sabian’s neck. If he can just keep him occupied for ten seconds more-

“It’s about us. You and me. That’s all it’s ever been about. No matter where I go, you’re always there. Always _reminding_ me of what I - what _you_ are. How am I supposed to be happy, Fjord? How am I supposed to _rest?”_

Fjord’s head spins, trying to make sense of Sabian’s words, the ones that are growing less angry and more desperate by the second. The sword trembles in his hand, and Fjord is seized by the ridiculous desire to _fix_ this - to take whatever it is he’s done to hurt Sabian, and to set it right.

He takes a cautious step forward. Sabian takes one back.

“Sabian,” he says, quiet above the raging storm. “Let’s just talk about-”

It’s at that moment Vandran’s foot slips. The wet wood creaks beneath him, and with a gasp, Sabian’s head jerks towards the sound. 

Fjord can’t even find the breath to cry out as Sabian turns on his heel and plunges the rapier through Vandran’s heart.

He watches in slow motion as Vandran’s body crumples forward with a small, surprised grunt, the light leaving his brown eyes. Sabian’s eyes go wide, darting between the red blooming from his blade and the pommel in his hand, like he can’t truly believe the two are connected. Then, letting out a fearful cry, he plants a foot in Vandran’s chest and kicks with all his might. The body slides off his blade and keels over the railing, disappearing from Fjord’s sight.

In all the tumult of the storm, Fjord doesn’t even hear the splash as Vandran’s corpse hits the water. He can barely hear his own heart.

There’s a rush of footsteps at the door, but Fjord no longer cares about his own rescue. He’s not disappointed when Sabian’s own guards rush out onto the balcony, or when Sabian picks up the blade from the deck, steeled once more after his brief moment of remorse. Fjord doesn’t put up a fight as they take his arms and drag him over to the banister, still wet with Vandran’s blood. 

“Why?” is all he can muster the strength to say as Sabian steps forward. _“Why?”_

“You always thought you were better than me, didn’t you, Fjord?” The shaking words are incomprehensible. He doesn’t bother to try to make sense of them. “We were never friends, don’t you understand? How could a prince and a servant be-” 

Sabian’s voice cuts off with a choked laugh, and when Fjord looks into his eyes, he doesn’t recognize the man he sees. The hatred is all-consuming, and just like when Nurse would look at him the same way as a child, Fjord still doesn’t _understand._

“Well, it doesn’t matter now. All that matters is the future. _My_ future.” Sabian sneers. “You have none. And isn’t that just the _perfect_ ending to the story?”

The blade that pierces through his stomach should hurt, but Fjord doesn’t feel it. He doesn’t feel anything, but numb. The guards hold him fast, so that he can’t collapse onto the deck as the sword withdraws. He watches the red pour out of his body, mingled with the red already coating the deck, and can’t bring himself to care.

_Vandran is-_

_He’s-_

“Goodbye, Fjord,” Sabian whispers, and turns away.

He feels himself being flung backwards into the open air, and falling, and falling, and hitting the waves, and sinking, and sinking, and

_drowning_

and-


	4. Oomycete (The Forest)

Fjord curls to the side, trying to rock his body to wakefulness, despite a profound longing to stay asleep. There’s something hot beating on his face, something cool wrapping his body, and the contrast in temperatures is pleasant; it makes him want to lay still, curled up a little longer. He was dreaming, and for once it was a _nice_ dream. He doesn’t remember what of, but it was… calm. Comforting. 

He doesn’t get dreams like that often.

The captain’s bell hasn’t rung yet, but if the light burning its way through his eyelids is any hint, it’ll be his shift soon. Reluctantly, Fjord cracks his eyes open, already running through the day’s duties in his head. 

He finds himself staring up not at the gnarled planks of the upper deck, but at a blue, cloudless sky, and a sun hanging high over the boughs of trees. 

Fjord shoots up, spraying sand in every direction as he presses his hands to his abdomen, the memory of a sword plunging through his stomach drowning out the roll of gentle waves. His fingers skirt around his torso, searching for the puncture wound that Sabian’s sword left. But when he looks down, he doesn’t see a gaping hole in his gut. He doesn’t even see any blood, or torn fabric. Instead, his hands tangle in slick strands of kelp, rubbery braids that tingle against his skin as he pulls them away one by one. 

Beneath the kelp, the ocean has washed out the red in his shirt to a dull pink-ish tinge. When he lifts the stained fabric over his head, there’s not even a wound to speak of. He only finds a scar, just above his navel: brown leathery flesh, knit together and whole, as though he’d suffered the stabbing three months in the past and the healing process had already run its course.

Shrugging off the rest of the kelp around his shoulders, Fjord raises his hand to his injured eye and finds much the same situation there: a raised ridge of flesh running from his hairline and bisecting his eyebrow through to his cheek, but no sting at the touch. It’s scar tissue, just like any of the other aged marks that litter his skin.

Then, could _Vandran’s_ wound-

Fjord balls over as a wave of nausea hits him, another flood of memories rushing back to fill the void the ocean left. 

A sword piercing Vandran’s heart. His heavy body, tumbling out of sight. No sound but the rain as it hit the water.

He’s watched men die before. The sea isn’t cruel, but it is unforgiving. A slippery deck, a deadly pox, a boom not secured properly - there are so many ways to find an end at its hands. He’s seen it happen, to people he called friends, more times than he cares to count. He knows what it looks like when the breath leaves a body for the final time.

Fjord may be, miraculously, alive. But he can’t lie to himself, not about this. 

Vandran is _dead._

And Sabian is the one who killed him.

Fjord drags himself to his feet, kicking away the last of the kelp into a heap. He looks around, surveying the shore he’s washed up on. He doesn’t recognize the coast. The trees lining the beach are unfamiliar, and odd: conifers rooted right up to the ocean’s edge, where the tide rolls over the sand. Pines shouldn’t survive in a sticky climate like this, but nevertheless the forest grows dense as morning fog within a hundred feet of the beach, and all its trees are lush and thriving.

Without the balm of cool seaweed strands wrapping his body, the midday sun is unbearably hot, and Fjord wanders aimlessly into the shadow of the trees to escape its searing rays. The shade does nothing to ease the burning in his chest. 

Sabian _killed_ Vandran, and for what? 

Because Vandran stood between him and Fjord? 

Fjord is sick with the remembrance of the past few weeks - all the hours he spent in Sabian’s company, fawning over him in adoration like they were children again. All that time, was he already sharpening the sword that was meant to kill Fjord? That _did_ kill Vandran? 

Fjord prides himself on being able to read a person by sight alone. How could he possibly have missed _this?_

With fresh grief comes fresher anger. What was Vandran’s death even for? Sabian called Fjord ‘the greatest danger of them all’, but what threat could Fjord pose to him? Was Sabian’s pride so delicate, that it couldn’t stand the existence of such an unqualified friend being known even to a crew of hard-eyed sailors, who didn’t care a lick about class or rank? Or had he simply despised Fjord from the beginning, and finally found the perfect opportunity to remove him from his life?

Maybe Sabian hated him, Fjord concludes, the way Fjord should have hated Sabian all along. The way he hates, _hates_ him now.

He doesn’t know where he is, or where he’s going, but he knows what he’s going to do when he gets there. And he won’t need a sword to do it. He’ll use his bare hands if he has to.

Fjord wanders hundreds of meters into the forest, deep in violent thoughts, before he realizes he’s lost sight of the coast entirely, and with it any sense of what direction he came from. When he turns and looks back through the trees, there’s no spot of blue to be found. The crash of waves is gone, replaced by the hum of insects and the call of birds in the branches above: _chickas_ and _hoos,_ and chittering cries that might be from rodents, or other small beasts underfoot. Only dense thickets of brush remain, and waving branches, all bending in the same direction from an unfelt wind. Fjord follows their lead; he has no other sign to guide him.

The forest gradually grows less heavy, breaking into shrubby patches where Fjord catches glimpses of the sky again, just broad enough to tell him that night is coming on fast. Fjord huddles up against a tree as the air grows chilled, praying to whatever god might be listening that nothing foul or ferocious eats him in the night. 

By the morning, his body is wracked in chills, his hands freezing when he drags them up to touch his clammy neck. When he lifts his shirt, Fjord finds the puncture wound in his stomach still closed, but the area around it streaked with jagged lines, radiating out in a starburst pattern of angry red. Whatever miracle healed the wound, it didn’t do so before the poison of infection crept beneath his skin.

Shaking, he gets to his feet, and walks as far as he can before his vision grows too blurry to make out more than vague shapes of green and brown. Then he closes his eyes and lets his feet guide his path, and when even those fail him he follows the indents in the land on his hands and knees. By the end of his strength, he’s crawling on the earth like a beast, and even then he doesn’t give in. His rage is too strong to let him rest.

He _has_ to find his way to Sabian. He _has_ to avenge Vandran’s death. He can’t stop, until-

Until-

He can’t say when he loses consciousness, or how long he dreams afterwards. He only remembers the horror of it all. 

The first of the visions is _cold:_ an icy death, and Vandran’s whited, dead face opening up to devour him whole. Then the image shifts and the face looming before his is the man’s, and the crush of water is his hand on Fjord’s throat, while the other hand plunges a trident into Fjord’s chest. The gold-leafed crest on the hilt bears the symbol of the royal family, and even once the man lets go, even as Fjord loses blood along with precious air, even with all his strength he can’t tear it from his body. 

He thinks, _I’m going to die._ It’s a thought he’s had before, but it has never felt truer than now.

But somewhere beyond the blackened waters, there’s a greener light calling to him. In the distance lies a forest of decaying trees, palms and willows and long-rooted oaks in a sandy grave. Branching arms reach through the clouds of blood and draw him into the fold, where no ghostly presence can enter, and though he’s still beneath the water he finds he can breath again. Shadowy tendrils of kelp drag him down, and his body is heavy, _heavy,_ and for once, he is not afraid of sinking.

Maybe here, in the ocean’s farthest depths, he can find Vandran once more.

There’s a voice, of a quality he can’t put a name to. Caring, and _motherly_ \- that’s the word he’s looking for, one he knows only in pangs of longing, not in practice. It’s telling him to-

_Wake up._

Fjord swallows, expecting seawater and tasting dust instead. His throat aches for the moisture it once had in abundance.

“It’s time to wake up now.”

A hand smooths back the hair from his damp forehead as he blinks awake. He’s met with the face of the strangest creature he’s ever seen, hovering just above his. He knows the parts, but they come together into an unfamiliar whole: warm brown eyes; a wet nose; and soft, floppy ears that twitch slightly as his bleary eyes begin to clear. 

He opens his mouth to ask where he is, but all that comes out is a faint rasp, words too faint to be heard.

“Here,” the creature says, her dulcet voice lifting as she raises a wooden mug to his lips. “When you have drunk a little, it will be easier to speak.”

Fjord drinks deeply of the cool water. It’s slightly sweet and soothes his parched throat on the way down. By the time he’s finished the whole cup, the creature is smiling, wide fingers once again stroking his hair. 

The touch should be frightening, especially from a stranger, but there’s something about the look in the creature’s eyes that speaks of safety, and of a kind of warmth he’s never known. He can’t bring himself to be afraid of her. 

“Where am I?” he asks again.

“With us,” says the creature, as though that’s answer enough.

“...Then who are you?” He looks around. They’re in a dwelling of some sort: rough woven fabric pulled taut over gnarled branches, and fashioned into a lean-to against the wide trunk of the tree that forms the back wall. The ground he lays on is carpeted by the tanned skins of animals, overlaid by soft furs and scraps of colourful quilts. 

Though the creature said ‘us’, they’re the only ones present.

“My name is Nila,” says the creature, soft smile broadening. “And I am very glad that you are here. I have always wanted a _guest.”_ Her voice brightens with excitement on the last word, like she too is discovering a new, untested meaning in what was before only an abstract concept.

Nila helps him to his feet, but Fjord is happy to discover that the dizziness is gone, along with the chills that wracked his body. He glances down over his body. His old shirt is still on him, but the fabric is a different colour. Gone is the off-white cotton with its bloodstained front; instead, the whole shirt has been dyed a deep forest green, a shade or two darker than his own skin. He lifts the collar to his nose and sniffs. The fabric smells of thistle and soil and fresh air. Not a trace of salty water or bloody iron remains.

It’s only when he’s standing that Fjord can comprehend exactly how tall Nila is. The lean-to is at least eight feet at its highest point, and her head almost reaches to the top of it. Fjord is not a short man, but he is dwarfed by her presence. She leads him out through a flap in the fabric, chatting away as she holds the fabric open for his passage.

“My mate has taken Asar to fetch water, but they will be back soon, and then we can eat. Do you like chestnuts?”

She brings him to a little fire, crackling in the middle of a stone-ringed pit, and takes the lid off a pot that nestles in the centre of the coals. The smell of roasting nuts wafts in Fjord’s direction. He presses a hand to his stomach, trying to silence the growl as the organ awakens. “I… do,” he says slowly. “What is _asar?”_

“My son.” She kneels and begins to stir the pot with a smooth stick. “He will be very excited to meet you, now that you are awake.”

“Uh. Is that so?” Nila hums in agreement from her place by the fire. When she makes no move to explain further, Fjord takes a tentative seat across from her. “How long have I been asleep?”

“I believe it has been…” Nila pauses, searching the air for her answer. “Three nights? And now a day has passed as well.”

Almost four days, and who knows how long Fjord stumbled along in his delirium before that. Sabian will have made it to port by now, if another storm didn’t catch him on the way. 

Fjord wonders what the crew thought, when they emerged from below deck and found their captain and quartermaster vanished into the night. Would they have the courage to ask questions, or would they cow under the prince’s authority, forced to accept any explanation he offered? Perhaps Sabian said they were swept overboard by a wave, or one fell from the deck and the other jumped in to save him. Even _he_ can think of a plausible excuse, and Sabian had the whole voyage to decide on his lie. It doesn’t give Fjord much hope for a mutiny in his stead, or a rescue on his heels.

“How did I get here?” 

“Kitor found you near the stream. He followed your trail for many miles, thinking he tracked an injured animal who he could bring to an easy end. There were many broken branches, and the scent of blood left behind you; it was easy to find the thicket where you lay. I am glad he did not mistake you for a wolf and loose his arrow.” Fjord shivers at the thought. “He brought you to our home, and I did my best to draw the poison from your body.” Her head bows. “My efforts were imperfect, but I could do no more.”

Fjord peels back the fabric from his stomach, relieved to see the reddish streaks gone from his skin. The wound itself now bears a small ‘X’ of black stitches, as though someone had cut through the scar tissue and sewn the edges together again.

“I feel fine,” he says honestly. If infection remains, he can’t see any trace of it.

Nila nods. “That is good. I hope that remains true, for a long time.” Her smile, though still warm, dims, and she turns back to the pot and stirs again. The nuts chatter as their shells begin to split from the heat. “Many things that grow sick here do not recover. I am happy that I could save one, at least.” The unsaid _for now_ still lingers at the edge of her words, and he frowns, but doesn’t have a chance to press further before the crunch of twigs under heavy feet alerts him to the return of Nila’s promised mate, with a bucket of water in one hand and a small child slung over the other shoulder.

As Nila predicted, Asar is fascinated by Fjord. His parents watch affectionately as he clambers over Fjord’s body, pulling at his ears and nose with a look of deep concentration, as though cataloguing the differences between himself and this strange creature by their firepit. Fjord isn’t quite sure what to do with a child, so he sits quietly and lets Asar do what he wills.

He hasn’t had much experience with children - not as a child himself, and not as an adult. Parents tend to pull them close when he passes, even the ones who might not be nervous of him themselves. Even a hint of orcish blood is enough to incite protectiveness in most. He understands that, but seeing how much Nila and Kitor trust him with their son, a total stranger to them… it makes his chest almost unbearably tight, and he clenches his hands behind his back to keep them steady. But by the end of the night, he grows accustomed to the friendly treatment, and eventually he gives up on keeping his mouth closed when it wants to grin. Asar tickles beneath his clean-shaven chin, searching for fur where there is none, and he laughs in a way he didn’t know he was still capable of, after all that’s happened.

“I need to get to Savalir,” he says over the remains of the fire, after the sun has gone down and Asar has been put to bed. Kitor laughs - a deep, husky sound, that warms as much as the embers by Fjord’s feet. 

“You will not have to go far then. You are in the Savalirwood. Did you not know?”

Fjord breathes out in relief. He had been afraid that the ocean had washed him up hundreds of miles from his destination. “Then can you tell me the quickest way to the capital?”

Nila and Kitor look at each other. “We can,” Nila says, “but why not ask the forest to guide you?”

Fjord blinks. “I… what?”

“The Mother brought you to Kitor, who saved your life. Will she not show you to your destination as well?”

Fjord shakes his head. “I don’t understand. How… how did the forest bring me here?”

“Oh… I assumed… I thought you were one of us. My bag-” Kitor puts a hand on Nila’s arm. 

“Perhaps there was another meaning,” he cautions. “Or he simply does not know. But it is not our place to give what must be discovered.”

Nila covers his hand with her own. “You are right, my love.” She turns back to Fjord. “It is a long journey for short legs. I will stay with Asar, and Kitor will take you to the city tomorrow.”

With that decided, they usher him off to bed. Fjord is given the child’s corner while Asar huddles between his parents, in the larger pile of skins at the centre of the lean-to. His small body is enclosed by their intertwined arms even in sleep, and Fjord stays awake longer than he should, watching the family slumber and wondering amidst stabs of still-aching grief if this is normal, or just one more strange behaviour of odd forest creatures with floppy ears and round eyes, and so much kindness to spare for a stranger.

He is still angry at Sabian - still outraged, still heartbroken, still bent on setting the wrong to right. But with Nila and Kitor and Asar sleeping by his side, he cannot spend the whole night festering in hate. The poison that had been growing in his heart fades to something milder, soothed by the swell of wind in the trees and the soft snores of his newfound companions. It becomes a determination, rather than reckless rage, and when he at last wakes, his whole body is lighter than before.

True to Nila’s word, Kitor takes him off before the first light of morning has dried the dew on the grass. They make good time together, following hunting trails that only reveal themselves to Fjord after hours of walking, as he grows more accustomed to the terrain. 

By mid-morning, the trees have thinned considerably, leaving long swatches of empty ground broken only by swollen roots and the burnt vestiges of trees. Or, at least, that’s what Fjord believes the blackened stumps in their path are, until he ventures close to one and is met with a heavy scent of decay instead of smoke. 

“What happened here?” Fjord asks. Kitor, silent for most of their travel, pauses to look where Fjord is standing. 

“A curse,” he answers. “It has plagued the Savalirwood for as long as I remember. None of the forest know where it comes from, only that it spreads each year a little closer to the wood’s heart.”

Sailors are superstitious folk as a whole, but Fjord has never been one to base his decisions on omens or fate. If there is magic in the world, he’s seen no evidence of it. A disease seems a more likely explanation for the forest’s state than a curse, or insects, like the kind that burrow into a ship’s hull unless dealt with swiftly. But he doesn’t question Kitor’s conviction; he has no desire to offend someone who’s just saved his life.

The sun has just reached its zenith when they finally break from the trees entirely, coming upon the crest of a high hill overlooking farmland and scattered roads. At the base of the valley lies a sprawling city. From this distance, Fjord can just see the point of a tall tower, raised high above the rest of the modest buildings that make up the capital. He recognizes the construction: a castle spire. Sabian’s destination, and now his as well.

“This is where I bid you farewell.” Kitor smiles. “Once you find what you are looking for, come see us again. We would always be happy to welcome you into our home.”

“Thank you,” Fjord says, with honest sincerity, then makes for the closest road, whose path travels down through the hills to the city’s edge. It’s only when he’s halfway to it that the realization hits him: never once did Nila or Kitor ask for his name. They let him sleep in a tent with their own son, and they didn’t even require that much?

He turns around, meaning to call out, but Kitor is already nothing but a shadow fading back into the heavy wood beyond. With no means to harken him back, Fjord turns again towards the city, and starts his slow descent into the valley where Sabian must, by now, be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a bit of an interlude, but things will be picking up in the next chapter. We're finally in Savalir, all!


	5. Adventitious (The Market)

Compared to the port towns of the Menagerie Coast, a landlocked city is a wholly new experience. Fjord is accustomed to stepping off the gangplank and being immediately surrounded by the scents of familiar wharves, by the bells chiming at the docks and the bustle of markets sprung up by proximity to boats rather than homes. But the whole of the capital of Savalir is enclosed by farms and the forest beyond, with no speck of water in sight beyond the narrow furrows that run between rows of cornstalks and wheat. The city walls are lower than the lofty dikes of Port Damali, more a deterrent to encroaching animals than a barrier to stop storm swells from spilling onto its streets.

Fjord approaches the simple wooden gates with trepidation, anticipating a myriad of questions in the absence of Vandran’s human civility to temper his orcish appearance. But the guards - who barely look the part, in their leather jerkins and loose cotton pants - let him through without interrogation. They even offer directions to the nearest inn without him needing to ask, and after the gate closes at his back Fjord stares at it, nonplussed, for a solid minute. He’s grown so accustomed to being treated with suspicion that a welcoming reception is almost more unsettling.

Though the countryside was quiet, with the few farmers and travellers Fjord encountered easy enough to skirt, the city itself is a flurry of activity. Carts lumber down the street in both directions, piled high with rolls of linen and sheaves of wheat, with baying sheep and lazy children hanging off the side. People air their laundry in the street, batting out carpets with long reeded staves and calling to their neighbours above the din of wheels. Fjord ducks to the side of the road, keeping out of the way of the crowded thoroughfare as he follows the gleam of the castle spire: his only lighthouse in this new, uncertain sea. 

Despite his apprehension, he can’t help but be fascinated by all he sees as he wanders through the streets. The people here are such a variety of shapes and shades - so different from the uniform homogeneity of Port Damali. Red-skinned tieflings chat with bearded dwarves by the communal well; a drow girl strolls arm in arm with her fairer human companion; three gnomish children chase a ball down an alleyway, so small Fjord fears trodding on one if he doesn’t take care with his steps. Never before has he seen so many different kinds commingled, seemingly harmonious in their shared urban life.

Fjord passes by a blacksmith shop, the pounding of heavy hammer blows jarring his teeth even from a distance of meters. Through the slats of the window he catches a glimpse of green skin and broad muscles. He pauses, breath caught in his throat, as a full-blooded orc steps out: the first Fjord’s ever seen. The blacksmith’s lips curl back from the steam as he plunges a white hot blade into the water trough by the door, revealing the curved shape of tusks between his sharpened teeth. 

Fjord almost speaks. He almost walks forward, drawn by an invisible compulsion, to _know_ \- to hear the voice of the demon that has haunted his every step, given flesh at last. But then the blacksmith looks up, and locks eyes with his frozen form. 

“Need something?” he calls out, and Fjord’s composure breaks. He turns tail and stumbles back into the crowd, and it’s another three blocks before his breath finally comes back to him. By then, he finds himself in an open air market that stretches for streets in both directions. Hawkers cry their wares from wooden stalls, drowning out his heavy footsteps as he darts through the shoppers, still looking back over his shoulder to make sure the blacksmith didn’t follow on his heels-

And runs straight into a richness of lutestring and lace, in the shape of a short tiefling woman. The basket in her arms falls to the ground as she stumbles, scattering apples and brown paper parcels in every direction. Fjord watches in mute horror as a passing horse nudges an escaping fruit, then takes it in its teeth and devours it in one bite. The woman, her black horns and sapphire skin dulled by the cloud of dust around her, makes a small wounded noise as she reaches out her hand to the doomed apple. At the final crunch, she clenches it to her chest, like the loss of the fruit tears at her very soul. Then she stands and turns to Fjord with a furious expression. 

He takes one look at her outfit - fine fabric, unmended and clean, _a noble at the very least_ \- and immediately drops to his knees and starts gathering up what he can, mumbling apologies as he dumps bruised apples into the fallen basket. 

“You should watch where you’re going, you know,” she chides. He stands and holds the basket back to her. It’s a lot lighter now than it was before, and he winces as she glances down into its barren contents, wrinkling her nose unhappily. “This isn’t enough for the tarts. Now I’ll have to go and get more.” 

“Sorry,” he says again. She still hasn’t taken the basket back. His arm begins to shudder from the effort of keeping it aloft. “I really didn’t mean to.”

“Oh, that’s ok!” Her face brightens with astonishing speed, sourness replaced with a cheery smile in an instant. “You can carry my basket, to make it up to me!”

“Uh-” he says, but the woman is already flouncing away. Fjord tucks the basket under his arm and hurries after her, trying not to lose sight of her blue dress in the crowd.

He finds her again at a little fruit cart, picking out more fat red apples from a pile. “There you are!” she says to Fjord as he jogs up - a little cross once more, as though he was the one to run off in the first place. “Here, take these.” She drops an armload of apples into the basket, then turns back to the vendor. “Actually, since I’m here again, do you have any strawberries?”

“‘Fraid not,” the man replies. “Come back tomorrow and we’ll probably have a fresh batch from Alfield.” 

She pouts. “I really wanted strawberries and cream though! The weather’s so nice...” But again, her expression changes like the wind, and she’s grinning anew before Fjord can fully register the change. “Actually, nevermind, I just remembered Beau said there were blueberries growing by the garden! Blueberries and cream is almost as good as strawberries and cream!” She taps a finger to her chin. “Cream, cream, I should get some cream...” 

She darts off with nary a goodbye to either of them, and Fjord is on the chase once more. 

“Wait!” he calls out through huffing breaths as they reach the next intersection.

“Hi again!” she says, pausing for a moment so he can catch up. “It’s not too heavy, right?”

The basket actually _is_ very heavy. He’s not sure how someone so short was carrying something so large and bulky. Then again, he can see faint lines of muscle peeking out over her low cut dress - she must be stronger than the average noble. 

Either way, he isn’t about to admit how much his arms are protesting at the effort, not when someone of her position was carrying the same weight without breaking a sweat.

“No. It’s just,” _grunt,_ “-just fine. But, uh… how long do you need me to carry this?”

“Oh, did you have somewhere you needed to be?” She bites her lip, for the first time seeming to realize he might have had a reason for being in the market, other than her grocery list.

Fjord starts to nod. He has to get to the castle as quickly as possible. He needs to head Sabian off at the pass, before he...

Before he... what? Takes his rightful place as an honoured guest, the heir presumptive in the royal castle? Draws his circle of guards even tighter around him? Tells his betrothed to be on the lookout for any stray half-orcs with treasonous tales?

Fjord doesn’t have a sword, or political clout, or even a family name to call on. If he shows up on the steps of the castle empty-handed and crying ‘murder!’, what, exactly, does he expect the result will be? 

Sabian said it himself on the ship - nobody will believe a lowborn sailor over the word of a crown prince. Sabian would have killed Fjord and named him the aggressor if Vandran hadn’t intervened, and none of the crew, who Fjord counted as friends, would have been able to say a thing in his defence, not unless they wanted to meet the same fate. Then what on earth can Fjord do to convince an unknown foreign government to take his side, or to risk political turmoil over the death of a hired ship’s captain, even if he had any evidence to show?

Fjord is at a loss. He doesn’t see a path forward that doesn’t end in him being thrown in jail, or worse. He needs a plan, something better than marching forward up to the castle gates and demanding his own arrest. And in the meantime… well, there are worse ways to see the city than as a noblewoman’s valet. At least in her presence, there’s a credible purpose to his wandering, one that won’t get him labelled a vagrant and thrown in jail for a far more mundane reason than slandering Prince Sabian’s good name.

“Nowhere to be,” he says at last. “I’m all yours.”

“Great!” She sticks out her hand. “I’m Jester, by the way!” 

“Fjord,” he replies, glad she didn’t offer a family name, so he doesn’t have to give her one in return. 

Fjord awkwardly shuffles the basket onto his hip so that he can lean down and press a gentle kiss to her extended hand. That’s what you do when a fine lady greets you, right? 

But evidently, this wasn’t the response she expected, because Jester giggles and blushes, her cheeks stained a bright shade of fuschia.

“Oh wow,” Jester breathes, eyes sparkling as brightly as the delicate chains hung from horn to ear, “you really are a gentleman, aren’t you, Fjord?”

He flushes as deeply as Jester, stepping backwards. “No,” he corrects hastily. “Not at all.” 

What on earth about his ragged appearance had given her that impression?

Jester’s only reply is another giggle, but she takes him by the arm and leads him further into the market. They walk side by side, instead of her at the front and him following behind - as if he were a gentleman after all. 

It’s... nice.

The basket grows heavier and heavier as the afternoon wears on, the wicker weave soon piled high with bundles of sugar, glass bottles of milk and sweet cream, and more butter than any person should ever need in their lifetime.

“Wouldn’t it be cheaper just to buy a barrel of cream?” Fjord asks, readjusting his grip for the fourth time in as many minutes. _Or a cow,_ he adds silently.

“But churning is so _boring,”_ Jester moans, adding another bottle to the pile. “It takes all the fun out of baking.”

_Not that you would be the one doing the churning,_ Fjord thinks, not really bitter so much as confused. Only scullery maids do that kind of work, or the stablehands they bribe with scraps of sweetmeat when their fingers grow too blistered to hold the paddle another hour. Jester is clearly too wealthy to be doing any hard labour herself, even if she’s enthusiastic about the pastries that result from it.

His stomach aches as much as his arms by the time Jester declares the shopping trip done. It’s closer to supper than midday, and he hasn’t had anything to eat since the berries he and Kitor shared along their morning walk. Fjord doesn’t have any coin - his purse wasn’t something he’d had any reason to grab before his fateful meeting on the balcony - and now he wishes he’d spent more time musing about where he was going to stay for the night as they shopped, and less fruitlessly searching for a solution to the matter of Sabian. 

Thankfully, Jester promises to treat him to dinner in exchange for all his help, and he readily accepts her offer. At least with a hot meal in his belly, the prospect of a night spent sleeping in the street or the fields isn’t quite as harsh.

Fjord finally works up the courage to ask the question burning in his mind over truncheon of thick brown stew, at the table of a local tavern. Jester sits across from him, stealing nibbles of the hard bread that makes up his bowl, having finishing her own portion five minutes before. 

“What do you know about the castle?”

“A lot! It’s pretty much the coolest place ever. There are _so_ many rooms, and the grounds are really pretty, and the prince is _super_ nice. He comes out and chats with the farmers and the craftspeople and stuff all the time, because he wants to make sure he’s doing the right things for them. Isn’t that amazing?”

“Really?” Fjord says. He can’t really picture Sabian or the king ever mingling with their subjects like that. “Yeah, that’s amazing, alright. What about the rest of the royal family? What are they like?”

Jester squints at him like he’s asked why the sky is green. He stares back, equally confused. “What do you mean?” Then her eyebrows raise in realization. “...Wait. You’re not from Savalir, are you?”

“…No?” he answers, still unsure what gaffe in his question gave him away. “I’m, uh, I’m actually from the Menagerie Coast.”

“Oh. My. Gosh.” Jester slaps her hand down on the table to punctuate each word. “Me too, Fjord! I’m from Nicodranas! Is that where you’re from?”

“Port Damali, actually.” He’s too wrapped up in shock, and no small measure of excitement, to think to lie. “That’s amazing! I didn’t think I’d meet anyone else from the Coast out here.”

“Port Damali? Isn’t that where the prince’s new husband is from? Wow, what a crazy coincidence!”

“...Yeah,” Fjord says, his heart clenching as he now realizes what he’d just admitted. “Crazy. How did you end up all the way out in Savalir, if you’re from Nicodranas?” he asks quickly, hoping the rapid change in subject might distract her from the connection he so foolishly provided.

“Oh, well, you know.” Jester pulls back a bit, suddenly very occupied with tearing apart the speck of bread in her fingers. “My mama is like, super famous, back there. Everyone loves her so much, and I may have, mm, gotten in a little bit of trouble with one of her gentleman friends. Not bad! Just, you know, bad enough that she thought it might be better if I went away for a little while.”

“I understand.” Fjord nods. That explains the highborn dress and posture - undoubtedly her mother sent her away with enough to make a comfortable life for herself wherever she landed. It might also explain why she’s out here by herself, doing her own shopping instead of having a servant do it for her. “Sorry to hear that.”

“It’s fine!” Jester’s eyes are still bright, but there’s a sheen over them that speaks of sadness behind her untroubled tone. “I really like it here. Like I said, the prince is super nice, and I love the castle, even if there are a lot of people to feed and it’s hard to keep up sometimes, especially with the new prince here too, and he brought so many people…”

“Wait,” says Fjord, holding up a hand. Her words are flying too fast for him to keep up. “Wait… you live at the castle?”

“Well, yeah!” She laughs. “Didn’t I say that?”

Fjord can’t speak a reply. This woman… this woman, she lives at the castle. She knows the prince of Savalir, and she’s met Sabian too. 

And he just told her exactly where he was from. 

If she goes back and tells people at the castle about the strange orc from Port Damali that she met in the market… he’s a dead man.

“Don’t think you mentioned it,” he forces out, trying desperately to stay calm and nonchalant despite the pounding in his chest. “Look, Jester, if you could… not mention where I’m from to anyone?” He laughs as well, hoping it comes off embarrassed and not panicked. “Just… don’t want anyone thinking I’m something that I’m not. Or pretending to be, you know? I just came to Savalir to-” he pauses, searching for a plausible explanation, “-look for work. I’ve got nothing to do with the new prince.”

“Yeah, sure, Fjord!” Jester’s smile is unchanged, but Fjord can’t bring himself to believe the promise on her word alone. “That’s no problem, and besides, I don’t think you need to worry. I don’t think anyone would think you’re with the prince. He’s _fancy,_ and you smell too much like the outdoors.” Under any other circumstances, Fjord might have been offended by the implication, but here, he latches onto it with nervous hope. Maybe, if she believes he’s insignificant enough, Jester won’t think to mention him after all. “What kind of work are you looking for?”

“Uh,” he starts, wracking his brain for any skill that isn’t related to sailing, and only coming upon what he did for the man when he was younger. “I’m used to working with my hands. Hauling, building, repairs, that sort of thing. I can shoe a horse, or muck a stable - whatever needs doing, I’ll do. I’m not picky.”

“Great! Then come on!” Jester abruptly stands, throwing a few coins onto the table and grabbing the basket from the floor. “I’m sure Caleb will have something for you!”

“Jester!” he calls out, but she’s already out the door. He rushes after her, finally catching her by the arm in the middle of the street. “Where are we going?”

“To the castle, silly! That’s where I work too; you’ll love it, I swear. And Caleb’s been looking to hire someone else after Molly, and once I tell him how helpful you were today, he’ll _have_ to choose you!”

“Who’s Caleb?” he asks, the tightness in his throat both from worry, and from reckless anticipation.

_Could it really be this easy?_

An invitation into the castle he, only four hours ago, had no idea how to breach? A promise of a job that might put him within striking distance of Sabian, without any more scheming on his part? It’s impossible luck. _Unbelievable,_ is the word that comes to mind. If he were a more superstitious man, he might have called it _fate._

The solution can’t be this simple. It _can’t_ be.

And yet Jester is still leading him onwards, chatting away as they draw closer and closer to the castle spire. If the basket’s weight wears on her shoulder, she doesn’t show it.

“Caleb’s the groundsmaster at the castle! He’s, like, _so_ smart, Fjord, and really organized, and just the coolest. I can’t wait to introduce you.”

“Ah.” Fjord’s throat tightens a little more. “I… I can’t wait either.” 

Though his steps want to slow, he forces himself to keep pace with Jester. Fjord reminds himself that he’s not a child anymore - that he’s a man now too, and that she isn’t giving him to this groundsmaster, this _Caleb,_ to do with whatever he wills. She’s offering him a job. There’s a difference.

The difference doesn’t seem so big as she ushers him through the lavish golden gates of the castle. They close at his back with a heavy clang, sealing him back into the place he spent his whole childhood trying to escape. But Fjord tells himself, again and again, that it’s a blessing. It’s a _miracle_ that he met Jester when he did. Whatever comes next, he’ll make the most of it - for the sake of Vandran, and whatever future hurt he can prevent at Sabian’s hand.

He squares his shoulders, weaving every inch of confidence he doesn’t feel into his posture, as he follows Jester into the terribly familiar unknown of the castle grounds beyond.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally, one of the M9 makes an appearance! After a long journey, we're getting into the thick of it :)


	6. Budding (The Office)

Fjord keeps his eyes peeled for familiar faces as he follows Jester through the doors of the castle proper. His vigilance never drops as they traverse its twisting and turning halls. He didn’t get the chance to memorize every person in Sabian’s retinue, but he hopes that most of them kept their dress at least: a tighter and more formal uniform than any of Savalir’s guards. Not that he has a plan for if they _do_ run into one of Sabian’s lackeys - it’s not like he can hide behind Jester and pray all five feet of her will shelter him from sight - but what else can he do?

His first and best hope is that Sabian believes him dead. Truthfully, Fjord _should_ be dead, so it’s not too much of a stretch that Sabian might assume so too. And if that’s the case, the best thing he can do is keep a low profile. If Fjord doesn’t arouse suspicion, if he stays out of sight, nobody will have a reason to look closer. No one looks at the servants anyway, and for the first time in his life, it’s a happy thought. It was easy to be ignored when he was young, so why not here? Why not now? That neglect, that was so painful in childhood, just might save his life.

The careful search for Sabian and his guards also gives him something to focus on, which helps offset the more pressing anxiety: the nervous pain in his throat when he thinks of what Jester is walking him towards, and wonders what kind of man this new groundsmaster will be.

_Caleb._ It’s a strong name - unshakeable, like the barbed palisades that lined the city gates of Port Damali. The imagery isn’t particularly comforting. But the only thing that matters now is reaching Sabian, and the only way to ensure that happens is to not make trouble with his new employer. So whatever Caleb asks of him, he’ll do. Whatever he requires Fjord to be, he’ll become. If it means survival, he can endure anything. 

Their path takes Fjord and Jester through a labyrinth of quiet halls that probably would have been bright and cheerful at an earlier hour. The stately walls unfold into wide colonnades at intervals, letting in the crisp evening air drift to the outer corridors. In the open spaces between columns, curiously untended plants creep up onto the threshold of the exposed walkway. They lend the castle an almost timeworn air, like a building in the first stages of ruin, though the inner elements are still maintained more or less in the way Fjord would expect for a castle of this significance. 

The colonnades don’t make for a particularly defensible architecture, he notes. Port Damali was constructed of walls and walls and more walls, all designed to be unbreachable by the sea or invaders alike. But like the low walls of the city itself, this castle’s armaments are more decorative than practical - its gates made of metal rather than stone, its structure open instead of enclosed. Is it that Savalir’s true defences are further out from the capital, or do they simply not have anything to fear, being so remote from the rest of the world?

He and Jester come at last to a spiral staircase, and by the time they reach the top, Fjord’s lungs are aching. Judging by the number of flights they climbed and the rounded walls of the corridor after they emerge, they’re likely in one of the secondary spires of the castle. 

“Here we are!” Jester crows, gesturing at the ornately engraved door in front of them. A little light spills out from beneath the crack between wood and stone. Fjord steels himself as she walks up and knocks, calling out “It’s Jester!” in the same breath. She throws the door open not a half-second later and darts inside. 

Jaw rapidly tightening, Fjord steps in behind Jester, wishing she’d at least waited for an invitation. Maybe it’s her privilege to drop in on the groundsmaster whenever she wants, but he doubts he’ll be afforded the same leniency.

The central portion of the circular room is occupied by a large wooden desk, piled high with papers and ringed by towering bookcases filled with ornate scrolls and tomes. Unlike Vandran’s tiny office, where by necessity each book and piece of paper had its proper place, the room is every bit as overgrown as the colonnades. A grand quantity of written material spills out from what might have been organized shelves, at some point, but now are packed too full to pretend at any semblance of order. The only break in the monopolization of the curved walls is a six-paned window, overlooking the embers of the setting sun and the grounds below. 

The slender man seated behind the desk is… not what Fjord expected, truthfully. With delicate spectacles balanced on his nose and his long red hair tied back into a neat half-braid, he looks more like a ship’s accountant than the sturdy groundsmaster Fjord grew up serving. Still, he’s not so naive to believe that cruelty can only lie in physical strength, and Fjord keeps his hands folded behind his back, careful not to utter a sound before Jester makes his introduction. This is his one and only chance for a good first impression, and he means to show the best side of himself. Even if his clothes are tattered, only crudely mended by Nila’s needle, even if his appearance is… well, what it is, he can at least show that he’s respectful and obedient from the start. He won’t make the same mistakes twice.

“Who’s this?” the man - _Caleb,_ he has a name, Fjord reminds himself - asks, in an accent he doesn’t recognize. On the desk before him sits an open book, filled with what appear to be carefully detailed accounts. The quill in Caleb’s hand is poised to drip its ink onto the rulings of the next pristine page. 

They’ve interrupted him, in the middle of his evening’s work. Fjord swallows, more nervous than before, and looks to Jester, whose still-smiling face seems the safer option between the two.

“He’s our new employee!” Jester steps back and pushes Fjord forward in the same movement. He goes where her hand commands, and ducks his head into a shallow bow. Caleb pushes his spectacles back up his nose, looking Fjord over with a dubious expression.

“When was this decided?” Fjord straightens, concluding in relief that the question wasn’t directed towards him when Jester immediately picks up the thread.

“Just now! Well, actually, maybe an hour ago.”

“I see.” Caleb’s eyes flick between him and Jester. “And how did you... find this new employee?”

“ _We-ll,_ Fjord ran into me in the marketplace and knocked all my apples onto the road, which was pretty clumsy of him, but then he helped me carry my basket for the rest of the day, and he was so nice about it, and _then_ he said he was looking for work and I knew we needed someone else after Molly so I figured that he could be that someone, and maybe he could help me again the next time I have to go shopping because it was _so_ much easier with two people!” This she says mostly in one breath, quick enough to make Fjord dizzy. 

Caleb blinks, then shakes his head, as if to rattle her words into some sort of meaningful order.

“So you’re saying... there won’t be apple tarts tomorrow?” he says slowly. 

_That_ was what he’d gotten out of Jester’s speech?

“No, no, don’t be silly, Caleb! We bought lots more after!”

“Ah. Good.” He leans down and makes a checkmark on his page. “Luc was looking forward to it.”

Jester beams, and Fjord… has no idea what to make of the pace of the conversation. His neck is starting to prickle, wondering if he’s supposed to say something, or wait for Caleb to say something, or-

“What was your name again? Fjord?”

Fjord clears his throat. “That’s right.”

“Any family name?”

Fjord opens his mouth-

And can’t bring himself to say it.

He’s been ‘Fjord’ for so long that the thought of offering ‘Stone’ as well, the last thing the man left him with- he can’t. Not after everything that’s happened in the last few days. Not to this new groundsmaster, whose nature - good or ill - he still knows nothing of. No matter what the consequences, it’s too much to ask.

“No. Just Fjord.” He closes his mouth and waits for the admonishment, the derision, the cruel mockery in Caleb’s eyes. _An orphan, eh? Now I understand why you’re begging on my doorstep - no surprises there. What new name shall I give you, to remind you of your place?_

But Caleb doesn’t say anything of the sort. He only nods, and makes another note on his sheet. “Fjord,” he repeats. “Alright. And what kind of work were you hoping for?”

Fjord lists off the same qualifications he gave to Jester, and Caleb makes more notes, while Jester bounces around the room, pulling books off the shelves and replacing them after a few moments - only occasionally at the same orientation they started in. Fjord isn’t sure whether to be impressed by her audacity or worried on her behalf, or whether to save all his worry for himself, and what blame may fall on him by association. 

“Well, it sounds like we have plenty you could do. There’s always something that needs to be fixed around here. The pasture fences, for one - maybe you could start with that.” A note of annoyance blossoms in his voice, and Fjord’s back straightens instinctively, wary of the new energy in the room. Jester quickly rushes back to his side. 

“Beau said it was an accident!”

“Yes. A foot-shaped accident.” Caleb _hmphs,_ and though he lets the matter go, Fjord can’t bring himself to relax. “Whatever the case, they still need to be fixed, and I will not be the one to try and force Beau to pick up a hammer.”

_Beau._ Another castle servant, most likely. The cause of the broken fences. He catalogues the name, along with a mental note: ‘troublemaker’. That’s someone to avoid, if he doesn’t want to get on the bad side of the groundsmaster as well. 

Good. He’s learning quickly. Maybe all those years of watchful attention to the man’s peaks of mood were good for something, in the end.

“I’m happy to do it,” Fjord says, and for the first time in the conversation, a slight hint of a smile slips onto Caleb’s face. 

“I’d be grateful. Something tells me our new Prince Sabian wouldn’t appreciate a gaggle of angry geese nipping at his heels.” 

Fjord carefully keeps his flinch in check. He doesn’t know Sabian. He’s never met the prince before in his life. It’s imperative that he remembers that. 

“Now, for the matter of payment.”

Caleb puts aside his papers and draws out a long, narrow book from beneath another stack. 

“Our own prince isn’t much for numbers - or books, for that matter - so I’m sorry, I don’t know what your predecessor would have been paid.” The apology sounds genuine, though Fjord isn’t sure where the supposed offence lies. “Would two gold a day suffice, to start? And lodging and food, of course.” 

Jester pokes Fjord in the shoulder and grins. “Apple tarts for breakfast tomorrow!”

“And protein,” Caleb reminds her. “Not everyone is lucky enough to sit behind a desk all day. They need something more filling in their bellies.”

“Fine,” she huffs. “Protein too.”

Fjord barely hears the lively exchange, too lost in astonishment at what he’s just heard. Two gold a day, to _start?_ That’s more than he averaged on Vandran’s ship, even in the best months of the year, and he wasn’t paid a penny for his work at the royal castle in Port Damali. He supposes, in hindsight, that those that came to the castle willingly - who weren’t charity cases earning their keep - must have had a salary, but he can’t imagine it was anything near what Caleb is offering. Seven silver a day was enough to tempt the man to give Fjord to Vandran with barely a second thought. With two gold, Fjord would have enough to buy good clothes, sturdy shoes, even to put some away for the future...

Fjord glances down at Jester, at her finely made apparel and her jewelry: not showy, but elegant, and obviously crafted with care. He can finally start to reconcile her appearance with her talk of making breakfast for the castle, of doing her own shopping, of working for a living like any other lowborn girl. She looks more like a royal ward than a cook, but with two gold a day or more, she must be able to afford to dress how she likes.

“That’s very generous,” he says at last, “More generous than I… I deserve. But I’ll work hard to make your investment worthwhile. Whatever you need from me, Groundsmaster, you need only say the word.” Fjord dips into another half bow, and when he rises both Caleb and Jester are looking at him with twin expressions of bewilderment. 

“Right,” Caleb says slowly. He’s gained a little colour on his cheeks, Fjord notices, but can’t guess the reason for his sudden discomfort. “I’m… sure you’ll be an asset. And... Caleb is fine.” Fjord nods, wincing at the blunder. He must not disguise this particular flinch well enough, because he suddenly finds Jester latched onto his arm, her hands around his elbow and giving it an encouraging squeeze.

“Caleb doesn’t like titles,” she whispers, in what he’s sure sounds to her ears like a quiet tone. Fjord’s eyes flick to Caleb, who is already busying himself with his work again now that matters are settled. He doesn’t seem put off by Jester talking about his preferences so openly, which is a mercy. Fjord wonders at their relationship - maybe Caleb has some special endearment for her, that he lets his subordinate act so brazenly in his presence. “But if you want to call me ‘Empress of the Best Pastries in All the World’, that would be totally fine!” 

Despite himself, he finds his worry easing at her teasing smile and her comforting touch. By the way her own expression softens as he starts to relax, that was her intention all along. “I can do that,” he murmurs, a bubble of warmth spilling into his chest. 

She could have used his misstep to elevate herself in Caleb’s eyes, crawling over him to raise her own esteem by comparison, and instead she decided to _help_ him. That’s a kindness he won’t forget.

“Well. Today was fun, but I’m _super_ tired,” Jester says, yawning too widely to quite be believable. “After I drop this stuff off, I’m going to show Fjord Molly’s old place, ok?” Caleb waves a hand without looking up, dismissing them. Once they’re back in the hallway, Fjord can finally breathe properly again.

After traipsing after Jester to the outskirts of the kitchen, where a few servants are in the midst of preparations for the next day’s meals, Jester leads him back out into the grounds. Night is fully on by this point, and without any light but the moon he has to tread carefully to keep his footing on the uneven ground. Jester walks with a surer step, the faint celestial glow enough to guide her path.

“I’m not sure how clean it’ll be.” As they walk, the skip begins to disappear from her step. What’s left is a straightforward march, her voice trailing off into a note of melancholy the longer she speaks. “I _think_ most of Molly’s stuff is gone, but he had a lot of stuff...” 

“You mentioned Molly before,” Fjord remembers. “Was he a friend of yours?” 

He knows the pain of a cherished friend leaving for new adventures - sailors seek new fortunes all the time. He hasn’t got much experience in consoling others, but for what she did for him inside, he owes it to her to at least _try._

Jester’s lips tighten. “Oh, well, he used to work here too, and he was just the coolest person, you know?” Fjord doesn’t know, but he nods anyway. “He even taught me how to read fortunes!”

“But he doesn’t work here anymore?”

She shrugs, looking straight ahead, one foot in front of the other. “He died.”

Fjord’s spine freezes, a wave of cold running from his scalp to lower back. “Oh, uh,” he sputters. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have-” 

“No, it’s ok!” Jester quickly reassures him, and her smile is, for the first time, unconvincing. “I’m still really sad about it, obviously, but, um… he wanted everyone to be happy, when he was alive. I know he wouldn’t want us to be sad forever.” The smile regains a little of its former brightness, and though the pain is still heavy in her voice, the expression seems more genuine than before. 

Fjord thinks of Vandran, gone beneath the waves. Would there be a time, when he would be able to put his own grief aside? Where he’d be able to smile as brightly as Jester does - to live with both the joy and the loss, neither tarnishing the other? He didn’t think it was possible, but maybe…

But maybe.

He had thought she was leading him to a barracks of some sort, like the one he slept in when he was younger - thirty to a room, practically stacked on top of each other, and full of comings and goings at all hours of the night. But Jester pauses in front of a small cabin instead, at the end of a row of little bungalows of the same design. The door is brightly painted with geometric patterns and symbols whose origin Fjord doesn’t recognize, and this time Jester doesn’t bother to knock before letting herself in. Fjord follows on her heels, and finds himself in a cozy little room. A single bed sits against the wall, with a quilt as colourful as the door folded at the end. A nightstand, a chest, and a small table with a straight-backed chair complete the ensemble. Despite Jester’s warnings, it’s quite neat. Even the floor is recently swept, though a layer of dust rests on most of the furniture. 

“Here you go!” Jester plucks an iron key from beside the oil lantern on the table and presents it to Fjord. “Sorry it’s so small. The outhouse is just down past the other cabins, if you need it, and there’s a lamp there where you can light the lantern too.” 

“It’s… it’s great, Jester.” He holds the key in his palm, still staring at it even as she bids him goodnight and closes the door. When he tries the keyhole, it’s a perfect fit. Fjord turns the key slowly, listening to the lock fall into place with a heavy click. He turns it again, and the door unlocks. 

He tests it twice more, just to be certain, before going to light the lantern. 

He locks the door, and sits down at the little table, reveling in the flickering light of the lantern, the smell of fresh air, and the quiet of solitude that he has the power to end. All he needs to do is step outside, and though Jester is gone, the grass will still greet him as it always has, and the birds when morning comes. He still holds the heavy key tightly in his hand. In the space of an hour, it’s become the most precious possession he’s ever owned.

For a moment, Fjord almost forgets that this is all a ruse. That taking revenge on Sabian will be the end of his future at this castle, if not his freedom, or his life itself. For the night, he lets himself lavish in the wonder of it all: his own room, two gold a day, a proper bed with sheets and a mattress, and a friendly touch and comforting words, from someone who expects nothing from him in return.

Is this really the way of the world, outside Port Damali?

Is this really what a servant’s life could be?


	7. Auxin (The Grounds)

Fjord wakes to a flood of warm light spilling over his face and chest. The bed below him is soft as the clouds on the bluest days of midsummer, and he sinks into its warmth, as though the down mattress could swallow him whole, and he would be happy to be consumed forever. He’s not sure he’s ever slept so deeply, or so well.

The warmth doesn’t last. As his dozy mind awakens, along with awareness of his surroundings, the familiar chill of anxious realization spreads through his limbs. 

He doesn’t know what time it is. He only knows that the sun is in the sky, and so he’s surely overslept the servants’ breakfast - always before sunrise, to be ready to serve the nobles when they rouse at a more reasonable hour. 

More importantly, if he’s missed breakfast, he’s missed the start of the workday as well. Fjord hasn’t been this sloppy since he was a child, and any hopes he had of impressing his new groundsmaster are swiftly dashed against the rock of his own carelessness.

A new, more pressing worry presents itself, as Fjord remembers too that Caleb left him no instructions, beyond the task of mending the pasture fence. The pasture itself, he can likely find by wandering on his own long enough, but he doesn’t know where the construction tools are kept, or which are his to take and which might belong to someone else, and whether that someone would be angry that he took them without permission. He doesn’t know if there’s lumber to spare, or if he should go to the market to purchase some. And who will pay for the expense, if he does?

But surely, if Caleb meant him to know these things, he would have told him last night. This is another test, Fjord realizes with a sinking heart. Caleb is different to the groundsmaster he knew in mannerisms, but not in method. Fjord’s own plans for learning Sabian’s schedule, and that of his guards, will have to wait until he navigates the unknown expectations of his new position, and endures whatever punishment comes when he inevitably falls short.

...Of course, it was all too good to be true. He would have been a fool to believe otherwise.

_ Bang! _

A heavy pounding at the door startles him up out of bed in an instant. Fjord pulls at his shirt and smoothes it down as best he can, knowing he looks every bit like he’s just awoken - which, of course, he did. The sound is too loud to come from Jester’s small hand, so Caleb must have sent someone else to fetch him. He doesn’t want to find out what the scolding for laziness looks like, now that he’s a man old enough to bear more than a child’s body could, but hiding from the inevitable won’t solve anything. Better to take whatever comes, and sleep on the uncomfortable floor instead of the bed tonight, if it means waking on time tomorrow.

Fjord unlocks the door and carefully steps back as he pulls it open, wary of being struck by the fist still pounding at the other side. A paltry stream of light lands on his feet, but the majority of the bright sky is eclipsed by the shadow of an enormous woman, fist still raised for another strike. 

“...Hello,” she says at last, as he stands there dumbly, staring at her wild hair in two shades, and her shoulders, muscled enough to rip a log in half. He’s quite certain he’s never met a woman of her size before. “I’m supposed to come get you?”

“Oh,” Fjord says. “...Ok.”

She moves aside, and he steps out into her shadow, locking the door behind him hastily. By the time he’s finished, she’s already striding away, and Fjord hurries after her, with two steps to every one of hers. They walk along the row of houses towards the outhouse, in the opposite direction of the castle, and past it towards a larger building he didn’t spy in the dark last night. 

“Did the gr- did Caleb send you to fetch me?”

“Yes,” she answers simply, and Fjord’s stomach flips. 

“...Did he say what for?”

“He said that you were new, so I should show you around.” She pauses. “I’m sorry. I would have come earlier, but I like to sleep in. You must be hungry.”

“No- that’s- that’s alright.” Fjord flushes, uncertain what to do with the apology, when he meant to offer one of his own. 

Smells of hot oil and cinnamon waft from the building ahead. The tension in his stomach begins to ebb enough for the ache of hunger to creep back in, as he realizes they’re headed towards a mess hall of some sort. So perhaps breakfast comes later in this castle, which means he might not have missed as much of the day as he thought…

Yasha leads him through a propped-open door into a dining room. A few morning stragglers sip coffee or chew thoughtfully on bites of egg at their own little tables, or trade in cards or dice at one of the larger communal ones. Dishes line a long serving table along one wall, laden with various breakfast trappings, though picked clean of their best portions by this late hour.

“Take whatever you’d like,” the woman says, before taking a plate herself and beginning to shovel a mountain of eggs onto it. Fjord’s portions are a little more reserved - he’s still not sure how much he can stomach - but his eyes widen as he reaches the end of the table. The final plate is piled with a lopsided tower of immaculate tarts: the source of the cinnamon aroma, mixed with scents of buttery pastry and sweet, crisp apple. Each is decorated with a different design in sugar icing - a flower, a swirl, even one that looks suspiciously like a crude approximation of genitalia. 

Fjord picks the pastry up and turns it around, certain he’s mistaken - that it’s just the angle that’s playing tricks on his mind. But the woman leans down and murmurs in his ear, in a voice utterly void of emotion or gravitas, “That’s the  _ special surprise _ tart. Jester says if you find it, it means you’re lucky for the week.”

“Ah,” says Fjord. “Um. Good.” He’s not sure how a lewd pastry design is meant to be lucky, but he’ll take whatever he can get at the moment. Fjord sets the tart on his plate alongside his portion of porridge and fruit.

The woman goes and sits at one of the smaller tables, and Fjord hesitates by the water pitchers, not clear on whether he’s supposed to join her or find his own seat. He’s not sure to what extent ‘showing him around’ also includes keeping him company, but in time the awkwardness of unfamiliarity overcomes his indecision, and he takes a chair opposite her. She doesn’t protest, so he deems it safe to remain where he is, and starts wolfing his food down, hoping to be done by the time she finishes her own. 

“I’m Fjord, by the way,” he says when the silence grows too uncomfortable. “I don’t know if Caleb told you that-”

“He didn’t,” the woman replies, and Fjord swallows, sticky oats clinging to his throat. “But Jester did.”

“Ah,” he says again.

“I’m Yasha.” She doesn’t offer a hand.

“You’re friends with Jester, then?” he asks, desperate for another question to fill the space between them. For the first time, Yasha’s unreadable expression softens, a little affection creeping into her eyes as she chuckles softly.

“It is... hard not to be.”

“Yeah,” he says honestly. “I can see that.”

The conversation goes a little easier after that, and he soon learns that Yasha is a castle guard, but that she helps with building and raising when needed. 

“I’m glad you’re here now. I don’t know how to fix things. I mostly just move them around.” 

“Why wasn’t someone hired before?” Fjord asks, curious. He certainly doesn’t want to talk himself out of a job, but the kingdom of Savalir is clearly prosperous; it’s not like the royal family couldn’t afford to hire as many people as they needed to maintain the castle.

“Caleb is… he chooses people carefully. He needs to have a good feeling about them.” Fjord doesn’t know how Caleb could possibly have gotten a ‘good feeling’ about him in their brief meeting - first impressions have never been his strong suit. “But he trusts Jester’s opinion too.”

“When was the last time he chose someone?” He means to ask about the timeline - how long ago the last hire joined - but Yasha’s eyes darken, not with anger but with something far deeper, and indiscernible, as she gives an answer to a different question.

“Molly. And me.”

With breakfast finished, Yasha shows him where to put his plate, then leads him back out onto the grounds. She takes him to a shed where construction supplies are stored, and after Fjord tells her what he’s supposed to be working on, they head out into the broader expanse of the fields to the rear of the castle. 

They pass by paddocks of horses, roan and dappled coats sleek and healthy from a generous feed of green grass and hay, and little gardens sprung up between the enclosures, tucked into any narrow space where a few rows of vegetables will fit. Fjord even notices a lattice of some vining fruit laid up against the stable wall. As much produce as Jester bought at the market, a good portion of the castle’s food must come from its own cultivation. 

Every once in a while, he catches sight of another person - a farmhand watering a patch of potatoes, another gentling a stallion who’s grown restless in the rising heat of the morning air - but in line with Yasha’s explanation, there are far fewer employees maintaining the expansive grounds than he’d expect. Port Damali maintained an armada of servants, to care for the royals’ every need and whim, but here, it seems what can be accomplished by a few is done by a few, and no more.

Unexpected too, is the lack of feed animals, beyond the horses. Caleb mentioned geese, but Fjord never once spies a wisp of wool, or hears the bleat of a goat or the lowing of cows, in twenty minutes of walking. 

“The prince doesn’t eat meat,” Yasha answers when he asks, furrowing her brow as if the very concept confuses, maybe even alarms, her. “So we don’t raise it. But we’re welcome to eat meat ourselves, if we want.” 

Noting the relief in her voice, Fjord quickly nods in agreement. “That’s kind of him.” He could live off of vegetables and oats if he had to, but he still prefers a good leg of mutton when he can get it. Sabian prefers it as well - Fjord knows it well from the quantity of dried beef the prince went through during their voyage. He wonders, a little vindictive, how Sabian is taking to the cuisine of his new husband-to-be.

“The city has many rats,” Yasha says earnestly, and Fjord nods again like he understands completely, though he’s a bit lost at the turn in conversation. “I’ll show you the best places to find them, if you’d like.”

“I’m… I think I’ll be alright. But thank you.” She’s obviously trying to be helpful, even if he’s not sure what exactly she’s offering, or why. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

They come at last to a large grazing pasture, almost as wide as the whole of the grounds themselves, dotted with trees and shady alcoves as far as the eye can see. Long grass springs up in some areas, while others are unevenly shorn and sparse in vegetation. 

Fjord spots the issue Caleb set to him immediately. A number of fence slats near the gate are cracked, some even fully splintered, as though a mighty weight was repeatedly thrown against the wood. If he didn’t know better, Fjord would have suspected an angry ram or bull had been testing their strength against the fence.

“Do you know what happened?” Fjord asks, crossing his arms over his chest as he surveys the damage.

“Beau,” Yasha answers simply, before turning back towards the castle. “I should get back to my patrol now.”

“Of course!” He nods quickly, hoping nervously he hasn’t left her too much extra work to catch up on in the afternoon. Despite his initial alarm at her appearance, he finds himself as strangely taken with Yasha as he was with Jester. Fjord would hate to see her get in trouble on his behalf. “I’ll be fine; I have a good idea what needs to be done. Thank you again, for showing me around.”

“My pleasure.” Though the words are low and awkward, they seem genuine, and Fjord finds himself staring after her broad form long after she’s out of earshot. 

_ Jester. Yasha.  _ Two names to add to the list of people who have been kind to him, in this land of strangers. Along with  _ Nila, Kitor, Asar,  _ that makes five. Caleb’s name, he holds in his chest, hovering beneath  _ groundsmaster,  _ and a name he dare not speak. He’s not willing yet to commit it to one place or the other - only time will tell what sort of man he’ll be. Fjord can hope, but hope has never made the world anything other than what it is.

Though he would have said the same either way, Fjord is relieved to find he actually  _ does  _ know what needs to be done. The broken slats will need to be replaced, the weakened ones rehammered into place. A couple of the posts are splintered as well, so he’ll have to dig them up and measure their height, then carve out new ones. Between sawing, hauling, and repairing, Fjord guesses the whole affair will take a few days at most.

The prospect of familiar, well-defined work is a balm to Fjord’s soul, and he walks back to the woodshed with a lightened heart. Sabian’s guards aren’t likely to tread so far into the fields, and neither is Caleb, with his coat of fine cloth and scholar’s hands. He doesn’t seem the type to supervise his underlings in person, as the man sometimes did. Fjord will have solitude to finish the task, and it’s work of a kind he knows he can do well, given the time and space to do so properly.

The day passes quickly after that. His breakfast was late enough that he doesn’t bother breaking at midday, and by the time the sun dips he’s amassed an assortment of boards of the right length, ready to be carried to the fence and fitted in the morning. He’ll wake early and make up what time he lost by sleeping in today, and maybe even finish the whole affair by the next evening. 

Supper, when he finally makes it back to the mess hall, is an assortment of brightly-coloured beans flavoured with dark molasses, roasted potatoes on the side, and an earthen tasting gravy with bits of mushroom speckled throughout. Fjord eats heartily, appetite renewed by a day of good work and the promise of more in the morning. The flavours, new as they might be to his tongue, are genuinely delicious, and though sits alone, apart from a few curious glances, nobody bothers him. He’s happily permitted to finish his meal in peace.

On his walk back to his little cabin, he does spy  _ one _ hostile glare, through the window of the neighbour cabin to the left of his. Gingham curtains hang in the window, and as he passes by he catches a glimpse of a set of narrowed eyes - yellow, like his own - peering out at him: glowing slits of light against the darkened interior of the home. The moment he returns the glance, the curtain falls back into place and the eyes disappear, but their suspicious slant still lingers in his mind as he turns to the key to his own abode. 

He’s not too bothered by it, he decides. At the very least, it helps Fjord remember where he stands. He can’t afford to forget his place in all of this. Comradery amongst coworkers is something he grew accustomed to on Vandran’s ship, but he can’t expect the same treatment from everyone here - Jester and Yasha may well be the exceptions, and there might be more of those glances awaiting him in the coming weeks. Again, only time will tell.

That night, Fjord makes sure to sleep with the blankets half-off his body, and sure enough, the chill of morning wakes him just before dawn. He’s the first into the mess hall, early enough to watch the servants carry in the trays of food. No tarts today, but there are scones dotted with plump raisins, and he wraps two with a hunk of cheese for lunch before setting off. Their heavy weight in his pocket warms his leg as he walks back to the woodshed amidst the grey light. The boards are still waiting for him when he arrives, and he takes as many as he can manage under one arm before beginning the trek to the broken fence. 

Fjord gets a good hour of work in, and is just wrestling with prying the first of the broken boards off when he hears the first sign of trouble: a rustling in the grass behind him. He stands and turns, rusted nails still clenched between his teeth, and finds himself facing a puffed mass of white feathers. A solitary goose stands in the grass, its long neck craned and black beady eyes watching him intently. Fjord stares back. 

The goose lets out a mighty  _ hiss,  _ and charges. 

Fjord barely manages to dodge the goose’s beak as it snaps at his legs. The nails scatter to the ground, lost in the long grass as he leaps to the side and re-rights himself. 

_ Honk. _

_ Honk. Honk. Honk. _

More geese emerge from the grass, and Fjord looks up to find himself surrounded by a gaggle of at least ten birds, each hissing and spitting venom at the stranger who’s so ungraciously intruded into their domain. Fjord retreats until his back hit the fence, his hands raised in submission.

“Ok,” he says slowly. “I don’t want any trouble-”

Another goose charges and he yelps, scrambling up onto the broken fence slats and pulling his feet to his chest to keep them out of biting range. The geese close in, sensing imminent victory. 

Fjord should not feel as cornered by angry birds as he did by Sabian’s rapier, but the comparison is difficult not to draw, considering the circumstances.

“Oi, assholes! Knock it off!”

A blur of blue and grey is all Fjord catches before the first of the geese disappears back into the grass. With a  _ whiff,  _ another falls back, its long neck trapped in the curve of a wooden crook and dragged out of sight. The rest of the birds scatter, honking their protest as Fjord’s rescuer steps into view.

A tall woman, hair wrapped up into a practical top-knot and secured with a ribbon, walks towards the fence. She hefts her crook in her hands like a bo staff, ready to swing at the next offending bird. Her baggy clothes are suited to spending days in the sun, with long strips of dark skin exposed by their loose folds. She frowns up at him, and he reluctantly climbs down from his perch, keeping his eyes peeled for any geese that might have regrouped for a second assault.

“You alright, man?” The woman puts her hands on her hips, looking him up and down and lighting on his ripped shirt with a pained grimace. “Looks like they got you good.” 

He doesn’t quite have the heart to tell her that that’s just what his clothes look like, and he hasn’t got the money yet to buy new ones, so he sort of waves his arms a little, hoping she’ll read whatever she needs to into the non-committal answer.

“Thanks for the rescue. You’re pretty handy with that.” Fjord gestures at the crook, and she grins, giving it an elegant spin before stowing it over her shoulder again. 

“I do alright. You gotta show ‘em who’s boss, otherwise they walk all over you.” 

“Fjord,” he offers gratefully, holding out his hand. She takes it and gives it a firm shake. “I’ll try to remember that.”

“Cool. Beau.” 

Fjord’s arm freezes mid-motion.

_ Beau.  _ This is the person the groundsmaster -  _ Caleb  _ \- was angry with. She’s the cause of the broken fences. 

She’s someone Fjord absolutely should  _ not  _ be associating with. 

He withdraws his hand as soon as she releases it. “Right, so…” He looks back at the fence. “I should probably be getting back to work.” He winces. She just saved him, and now he’s just going to brush her off? Even if it’s the smart move, it still feels unbearably cold. His eyes flicker to the tall grass, suddenly wishing the geese would reappear and save him from his conundrum. “And you have a flock to tend to, I assume?”

“Oh, they’ll be fine by themselves for a bit. It’s not like the wolves get this far in anyway.” Beau hops up on the fence, claiming the spot he just vacated. “And this tending shit gets boring. I’d much rather find out who  _ you _ are, and what you’re doing here.”

“I already told you, my name’s Fjord.” He tries to be brusque, but Beau isn’t put off by his rudeness, if she notices it at all. She makes an impatient gesture - ‘go on’ - and he sighs, resigned to his fate. “I was just hired a couple days ago.”

“Really?” Beau leans back, resting her hands behind her head, as comfortable suspended in the open air as if she had a solid wall behind her. The glistening muscles of her exposed midriff clearly aren’t just for show. “Caleb finally picked someone new, huh?” She leans down and gives him a light punch on the shoulder, grinning again. “You must be alright, then.”

Fjord tries to turn his grimace of pain into a weak smile. Even if the hit was meant to be gentle, the impact still stings. “Guess so.”

“So tell me about yourself, Fjord. How’d you end up all the way out here?”

_ Damn.  _ Short of outright telling her to leave, it isn’t going to be easy to get rid of her. Fjord tries to relax as best he can. At least there are no other watching eyes around to report him for slacking off. As much as he wants to stay on Caleb’s good side, he doesn’t want to make any other enemies either. 

....Maybe a short chat wouldn’t hurt. 

“It’s not a very interesting story,” he starts. “Was looking for work, and… you know Jester, right? I met her in the market, and she offered me a job.”

“Oh. Well, that explains it.” Beau’s eyes flicker mischievously. 

“Explains what?”

“ _ Jester _ picked you. Gotcha.”

“What does that mean?” 

“Well,” she gestures down the length of him. “You’re  _ handsome.” _

“...Thanks?” Coming from Beau, it doesn’t sound like a proposition or come-on. The words are more teasing, like the other sailors would sometimes do when a pretty girl in port winked his direction, and he couldn’t contain his blush. He’s never been good at the whole  _ flirting  _ thing.

“Has she started calling you ‘Oskar’ yet?”

“What?”

“Nevermind.” Beau chuckles. “Just nip that in the bud if you can. I don’t need to go through that insanity again - it was bad enough the first time.”

Fjord shakes his head, just as bewildered as he was during his conversation with Yasha. There’s a whole history here, he’s discovering - a network of assumed knowledge and comradery he’s not privy to yet. He’ll have to try and follow along as best he can, and hope he doesn’t make too many mistakes along the way. Maybe that will be his challenge here: not the work itself, but the social dynamics of the castle instead. 

He’d probably be more comfortable with hard labour, if he’s honest.

“How about you? How did you end up working at the castle?”

“Eh, the usual. My dad kicked me out, I didn’t know where to go. People who don’t have a direction tend to end up here.”

“In the castle?”

“In Savalir. It’s the end of known civilization, right? You run far enough, it’s where you end up.” She leans closer, a few inches above him from her perch. “You running from something, Fjord?”

“Uh, no, I mean-” he sputters, too caught off guard by the question to keep his composure. Is he that obvious? How could she possibly  _ know? _

Beau laughs, nudging him in the ribs with her bare foot. “Shit, man, your face! You’d think you murdered someone or something. Look, if you  _ are _ running, it’s cool. I’m not going to pry. Everyone’s got their damage, and it’s none of my business unless you feel like telling me. That won’t keep you safe from Jester though, fair warning. She loves a good mystery. Not too.”

“Thanks,” Fjord says slowly.  _ Not too?  _ He shakes his head. Must be a regional expression. “Appreciate that.”

“No problem.” Beau finally hops off the fence, brushing off her knees and brandishing her crook once more. “I should probably go see where those assholes ended up. I swear, it’s like they  _ want  _ to die.” She grins again. “We should grab a drink sometime, Fjord. You seem like the type that would have some interesting stories.”

“S-sure,” he says, knowing he should say no, and not quite strong enough to do it. “Anytime.”

Because the thing is - he  _ likes  _ Beau. She’d fit in well on any ship he’d ever seen. Rough-edged and blunt, with a sailor’s mouth, she reminds him so much of the sea-hardened women he’s known, the kind he’s trusted his life with over the years. Jester is sweet, and Yasha is generous, but Beau is definitely the kind of person he’d have asked to get a drink, if she hadn’t offered first.

Maybe… it would be worth it. To take that risk.

Another light tap on his shoulder. “What’cha thinking about?” Beau’s grin, still teasing, is a force of nature, and he’s helpless to resist returning the expression.

“Nothing much.”

He chews on the interaction for the rest of the day, even though Beau doesn’t reappear once she takes off after her charges.  _ You run far enough, it’s where you end up.  _ Jester, running from her mother’s angry suitor, came to Savalir. Beau ran from her father’s house. Yasha’s story he doesn’t know, but there’s a haunted look in her eyes that speaks of something horrible in her past, and Molly… Molly… whoever this Molly is, or was, to be remembered with such reverence and pain… he must have had his reason too.

And then there’s him, come to Savalir as well, against all odds. But unlike the others, he’s not running from anything. For the first time in his life, he’s running  _ towards _ it. And that, like hard but honest work beneath his hands, is a new kind of satisfaction.

The sky is dark again by the time he returns the tools to the woodshed, the fence mended and strong once more. He’s done good work today, and speedy too. He can sleep well tonight, and ask for more tasks in the morning, and maybe on the way to Caleb’s office he’ll be able to see where Sabian’s-

There’s someone standing outside his cabin door, where he meant to grab the lantern before heading for supper. The tall shadow leaning against the wall can’t be anyone else but Yasha.

“Hello,” he calls, and she stands, towering over him as he approaches. “Nice to see you aga-”

“Caleb wants to see you.”

And again, Fjord is reminded of how fickle a thing happiness is, and how easily it can be taken away.

“Right,” he says, collecting himself in one deep breath. “Right. Let’s go then.” His feet are numb beneath him, cold as the path they walk towards the castle steps. Supper is quickly forgotten in the wake of the returning nausea, as he chides himself for being stupid enough to get comfortable after only one day.

This is where the reprieve ends, and it all begins again.


	8. Furrow (The Valley)

Fjord doesn’t have it in him to keep watch for Sabian or his people, this second time traversing the castle. He barely has enough fortitude to keep his eyes open and alert, fixed on Yasha’s broad shoulders as she marches him in silence through the same halls he strolled with Jester only two nights before. But there’s no Jester at his side now. No warm comfort clutching his elbow, teasing away the fearful thoughts before they can take hold.

The only reason the man would ever summon him this late at night was to point out a mistake, or to deliver the resulting punishment. And the groundsmaster - Caleb, _Caleb,_ he reminds himself - clearly has enough work of his own to keep busy even till this late hour. Why would he waste precious time on Fjord, unless there was something to correct? He can’t know the task is done - nobody was around to see Fjord finish. 

There’s no explanation he can cling to, other than the worst. 

Any hope Fjord had of presenting his finished work proudly to Caleb is long evaporated by the time they reach the office. Nervous energy gathers in the place the hope vacated, tangled up with fragments of excuses - of explanations - of all the details he learned of Caleb’s temperament the last, and only, time they spoke. Anything at all, to mitigate the damage.

The man didn’t like him to beg. He preferred prompt answers and few words from Fjord. Apologies were required, but never lessened the harshness of the reprimand. Above all else, obedience was key. It was the only approach Fjord could rely on, with him.

Vandran demanded close attention to orders as well, but he’d also preferred Fjord upright and proud. He’d wanted a more confident version of the boy he’d purchased with his hard-earned gold. That desire crystallized into a mask that took Fjord all of fifteen years to hone, one that began to crack within days of Sabian boarding the _Tide’s Breath._

One that all but shatters, as he braces himself to knock on Caleb’s door.

What does Caleb want from him? What is he supposed to _be?_

Fjord thought he’d have more time, to figure it out.

It takes a monumental effort to raise his fist. When he finally does, the rap echoes across the corridor, loud and harsh, rattling in the space between Fjord’s ears, so jarring he barely hears the soft _‘come in’_ from the other side of the door. In the end, it’s Yasha who opens it, giving him a curious look as he stands, unmoving, in the centre of the hallway.

Caleb is on his feet when they enter. He peruses one of the bookshelves, with two hefty tomes already balanced on his arm. The groundsmaster is not a short man, but he still stands on tiptoe to reach the tallest shelf. “One moment,” he calls over his shoulder, and Fjord waits, still as he can, and fidgets when he finds he can’t manage it. It would be rude to stare at Caleb, so he fixes his eyes instead on a new addition to the room, from the last time he visited: an orange tabby cat, who reclines on Caleb’s desk between a cup of half-drunk coffee and a strip of blotting fabric. It watches Fjord with strangely intelligent eyes, thin tail flicking in a lazy arc.

At last, Caleb lights on what he was looking for, and lowers himself back down to flat feet, a third book in his hand. The three books he stows in the desk, before looking up towards Fjord.

“Hello again,” Caleb says, neither expression nor voice betraying any hint about his mood. His disposition seems the same as before: reserved, and not overtly friendly, but not aggressive either.

In short, Fjord has nothing to work with.

“Could you wait outside, Yasha? I wanted to ask you something, after we finish.”

“Of course.” Yasha steps back and shuts the door, leaving the two of them alone. He’s unsurprised by Caleb’s request for privacy, but still pained to lose Yasha’s reassuring presence at his back. She’s sturdy, and seems the type who wouldn’t let any harm come to her friends- 

-not that Fjord is her _friend,_ of course, but still-

Caleb moves forward, and Fjord’s eyes spring back from where they’d drifted towards the door.

“How is the repair going? Not too difficult, I hope?”

Fjord takes a moment to parse Caleb’s words. _Not too difficult_ \- that’s obvious, at least. An invitation to complain is always the first test, but to suggest the work is easy is as much as begging to be given more. Right down the middle, then.

“Not at all.” Fjord bows his head in deference. “I hope you’ll find my work satisfactory.” Should he mention that he’s finished the repairs? Would that seem like boasting? Then again, it’s also possible Caleb expected Fjord to finish sooner, and that’s the reason he was summoned. Proclaiming his progress like a triumph might stoke Caleb’s dissatisfaction to even greater heights. 

But then again-

“Are you lacking anything? Tools you require, or… I’m afraid construction isn’t my forte, I’m not really sure what’s needed…”

Fjord can see where this is going. It’s all adding up, the longer Caleb speaks. To a trained ear, _are you lacking anything_ becomes _what excuse do you have for your slow work?_ He’s used to that sort of threat - usually spoken in a jeering voice, rather than Caleb’s hesitant, almost uncertain tone, but Fjord hasn’t had the chance to learn his cadence yet. It could be that drier sarcasm lurks beneath Caleb’s words, and he just isn’t skilled enough to hear it. 

Either way, his answer remains the same.

“Nothing, Gr- Caleb. I have everything I need.” Fjord sucks in a breath. There’s no point in hedging around the truth. It always comes out, one way or the other. “Actually, I’ve finished with the fences. If you- if you wanted to send someone to inspect them, everything should be in place.” He cringes at his own words. _Do not instruct me on how to do my own job, Stone-_

Fjord catches a flicker of surprise in Caleb’s eyes, before he remembers to duck his head back down to his chest. He’s too tall for his own good, he knows this - he _should_ know this, by now. The man _hated_ when Fjord outgrew him in height. He taught him well that to place himself above his betters was an impertinence, and reminded Fjord constantly that he should keep his head low, so that people wouldn’t think-

“That’s impressive. The pasture is a long walk from the woodshed. You must have gotten up very early, to finish so soon.”

Fjord could laugh, because in Caleb’s soft voice the praise sounds almost _sincere._ But of course, Yasha must have told him about his sleeping in on the first day. The comment is too pointed to be anything but a rebuke. He bows his head lower, cheeks burning, and says nothing.

“...Beau told me that you two met.”

Fjord’s heart gives a lurch. Of course, of _course_ that got back to Caleb too. Of course Beau told her employer, how he’d allowed himself to be distracted by something as unimportant as conversation. Why wouldn’t she? She was already on the outs with Caleb, and there he was, offering her the perfect stepping stone to bolster her position. Information is the only currency that matters in a servant’s life - anything to rise above the rest, to be permitted to choose the fattest portion of what little remains at the bottom of the heap.

“What did you think of her?” The words, so deceivingly casual, are steeped in deeper meaning, and for the first time in years, Fjord’s voice fails him completely. What is there to say? That it was her that asked him to talk? Why would Caleb believe a newcomer over his own acquaintance of months, even years?

The betrayal lances almost as deep as the despair. He had _liked_ Beau, against all reason. Fjord had wanted to believe she could be a friend. 

Just as he believed Sabian, when he said they could be confidantes once more.

He is a fool, again and again.

“Fjord?”

Caleb expects a response. Fjord needs to give one. _Come on, boy, I know you’re no mute._ He clears his throat, and finally forces himself to use his voice - the only defence he’s ever had.

“I apologize.” If he keeps his eyes down, he doesn’t have to watch Caleb’s anger grow at the inadequate reply. They aren’t the right words, but they’re the best ones he can muster.

“...For what?” More words, still so casual, gentle even, and Fjord cannot tear his eyes away from the floor. His hands are shaking behind his back: a nervous tremble, one he thought he’d left behind in his youth. 

He’d thought he’d left a lot of things behind.

“For my performance. I promise to do better in the future.”

Caleb’s pause is arduously long. “Do… don’t you think you’ve done good work, these past two days?”

Another test, this one achingly familiar, and he answers without thinking. The words are parroted from a memory, one Fjord is halfway to believing he never truly escaped. The atmosphere feels so like a dream he’s often had: Vandran’s face and the man’s entwined, and now Caleb’s too, and no matter the shape of the jaw, or if the hair is brown or black or red, the same hand is always around his throat, choking the words from his lungs.

“No, Groundsmaster.” _Caleb,_ but he’s too late to take back the word, now that it’s out of his mouth.

“...Why not?”

He lists out his offences in a monotone, trying not to let any shade of emotion creep into his voice. Shame tingles hot in his throat. “I overslept on my first day. I took longer to complete the repairs than required. I paused work for idle conversation, and distracted another servant from their own duties.”

Caleb is quiet for a longer moment still.

“I see.”

The reply is barely more than a murmur, quiet contemplation mingled with dark intensity. If it was allowed, Fjord would have squeezed his eyes closed, but such as it is, he keeps them open, till they burn with the pressure of so much exposure to the air. He catches a flicker of movement in his peripheral vision: Caleb lifting something off the desk. He doesn’t have time to worry about what object Caleb might have picked up, before a soft _mwroup_ greets his ears.

“This is my cat, Frumpkin. He’s a very good boy. Would you like to hold him?”

The question, almost childish in its delivery, catches Fjord so off guard that his head shoots up involuntarily. Caleb is in front of him, having moved out from behind his desk, with the orange tabby cradled in his arms. Once Fjord’s attention is up, Caleb holds out the cat at arms’ length. It squirms, annoyed at having been evicted from its comfortable throne, and Fjord reaches out quickly to take the offered creature. Having never held a cat before - the grisled mousers of Port Damali were as vicious as any pirate, and he gave them an equally wide berth - he shifts awkwardly, trying to keep a grip on the squirming ball of fur.

Then the worst possible thing happens. 

He sneezes. 

And sneezes. 

And before he can manage to apologize for his rudeness, sneezes once more.

“Oh- are you allergic?” Fjord can’t answer, too busy fighting down another monstrous bellow. His eyes burn from dander and embarrassment both, and when Caleb offers his arms again, Fjord hands the cat back gratefully.

“Apparently,” he mumbles, so befuddled by the turn of events that the horror that should have followed _sneezing on his groundsmaster’s beloved cat_ can’t quite penetrate his chest. Fjord wipes at his running nose with the back of his hand, then smears the snot as subtly as he can onto his shirt.

“Frumpkin, make sure to give Fjord his space from now on, eh? There’s a good boy,” Caleb says, looking Frumpkin in the eye while pointing to Fjord, as though he earnestly believes the cat will understand his instruction. He scritches between Frumpkin’s ears, then places him on the desk and turns back to Fjord again. 

It takes him a moment - far too long - to remember that he still shouldn’t be staring, and drop his eyes to the floor again.

“...I’m doing this all wrong, aren’t I?” The words are tired, and so much older than they were a moment before. Fjord’s ear twitches at the change in tone, but he resolves to wait until a question is asked before speaking out of turn again. “Should we sit?” Another pause. “Let’s sit.”

Fjord finally springs to attention at the sound of a chair scraping across the floor, to see Caleb dragging one from the side of the room over to Fjord’s position. “Let me-” he starts, but Caleb shushes him. 

“It’s no trouble.”

He goes to his own chair next, but instead of taking a seat behind the desk, he drags that one around it as well, placing the two facing each other, before gesturing to Fjord to sit. Reluctantly, he takes his place across from Caleb. From this position, it’s impossible to slouch far enough to make himself shorter than Caleb without the intent being obvious, so he sits ramrod straight, and lives through the discomfort in his bones at being so undeniably _present._ Caleb, apparently with no such qualms about what Fjord might read into the action, places his elbows on his knees and briefly buries his face in his hands, before sighing deeply and looking up through his fingers.

“What is your opinion of me, Fjord?”

Fjord opens his mouth, then closes it again. Flattery or fear or deference... he still knows so little about Caleb, he can’t guess which one is the right choice. 

“No, that’s not-” Caleb purses his lips. “What kind of man do you believe I am? Do you think that I am kind, or cruel? Do you suppose I am quick to anger, or easy to please?” Fjord swallows, and Caleb tries again. “...You might not believe this from me, but you can answer honestly.”

“I think… you’ve been very fair to me, and generous too. More than I des-” Caleb cuts him off with a hand. With his face now uncovered, the expression Caleb wears is hollowed out, his skin greenish and pale. Fjord falls silent, already spinning for another way to phrase the sentiment, since this approach is clearly the wrong one.

“Maybe, if I explained… there is a _reason_ I asked you to call me Caleb, and not Groundsmaster, though that is the official title I bear.” Fjord opens his mouth, ready with a new apology for the slip, but Caleb quiets him again with a hand. “Let me finish, and then we can talk together.” Fjord clamps down again, suitably admonished. “I was not born here, in Savalir. Like so many people, I came to this land because I was not safe where I came from. There is a person there - a man - who I believe hunts for me still.” He pauses, fixed on Fjord’s face, until he’s satisfied that Fjord’s eyes are on him. “He is the man I once called ‘Master’.”

Fjord, speechless for a new reason, can only stare, as Caleb continues.

“I was apprentice to him, when I was far younger than I am now. He took me from my home as a boy, and raised me to a position far beyond what I had ever dreamed. He was high in the government of my home country, you see. He had the king’s ear, and I… I thought, one day, I would have his. He told me that I was meant for more than what I was born to, and I was all too eager to hear it. After all, I was _clever,_ and so I deserved more… I _was_ more, than the lowly populace, who did not understand the great honour I had been given, the great deeds I would do. Even my parents-” 

Here Caleb draws in a long breath, placing his hands on either arm of the chair and gripping tight. But when his gaze returns to Fjord, the intensity of his look is strengthened, rather than diminished, by the emotion in his voice.

“My master was not a kind man. He was cruel, and he was heartless, and I ran because I was frightened of the things he had done to me, and to those I… I loved. But more than that, I ran because I was frightened of _myself._ I was frightened, because I was becoming the spitting image of the master I hated. And I am _still_ frightened, Fjord. I am frightened by the way you look at me - like you expect the rod for any offence, great or small. I am frightened because I look at you and I see the boy I was, and I see my master reflected in your eyes.”

Caleb reaches out and grasps Fjord’s hand, and he is helpless to pull away, caught in the inescapable gravity of the heaviness between them.

“To me, you and I are the same. I set out what work needs to be done, yes, but we are both employees of the castle, neither higher nor lower than the other. The ‘master’ in my title means nothing to me, and it should mean nothing to you. If I offend you, correct me. If I make a mistake, tell me so.” Caleb swallows, hard, as his speech draws to a close. “There is only one thing I ask of you: don’t carry fear of me in your heart. It’s the only thing I couldn’t bear.”

For the first time since he entered the room, Fjord speaks without design behind his words. Any thoughts he had of winning back favour with his groundsmaster have long disappeared, as a wavering name finally settles within his chest.

_Nila, Kitor, Asar, Jester, Yasha, Beau. ...Caleb._

“I… I don’t know what to say. I… thank you. For sharing your story with me.” 

Caleb smiles sadly. “I understand. It is difficult to accept that things can be different, when you have only known one way of living. For now, I hope this castle can be a haven for you, as it has been for me.”

“Thank you,” he says again. No other words seem adequate.

“Now, I really did call you here for a reason.” Caleb clears his throat as he takes his hand back, as if only just realizing it was still wrapped around Fjord’s. “Beau came to talk to me because she suspected her geese had caused some damage to your clothes.” He glances at Fjord out of the corner of his eye, and the acknowledgement passes between them: they both know full well that Fjord’s clothes were equally ragged when he arrived. “Most everyone goes to the market at week’s end, but there are shops open every day. Please, take this and purchase replacements for the damaged articles tomorrow.” He reaches back over his desk and hands Fjord a purse, heavy as a half-dozen of Jester’s plump apples. Fjord’s eyes widen as he draws open the string and discovers a gleaming pile of gold and silver within.

“Caleb…” Fjord breathes, “This is too much.” A shirt and pants he can get for a few silver. The purse contains more money than he’s ever held in his life.

“There’s also an advance there, on your first month’s salary,” Caleb clarifies casually. “Don’t feel like the money obliges you to stay, if you choose to leave before then, but it must have been a long journey to get to Savalir. I am certain there are things you need to buy, or replace.” Fjord nods slowly, still staring down at the riches in his hands. “Come back and see me in a day or two, once you feel like you’ve settled in. I’ll have more projects for you by then.” 

Fjord nods again. “Thank you. I… thank you.”

Caleb looks down into his lap, almost shy.

“There is no need to thank me, for doing what I should have rightfully done at the start,” he murmurs. Fjord has no response, and after a moment, Caleb looks up. “That’s all I had to say. Unless you have other questions, could you send Yasha in?”

“Oh- of course.” Fjord stands, almost weightless with disbelief as he walks to the door and ushers Yasha back into the room. The latch _clicks_ at his back, and he stands in the empty hallway, and blinks his eyes rapidly, and no concrete conclusions come to him. He walks the whole way back to his little cabin and not a single useful thought pierces through the fog in his mind, as he goes over each part of his conversation with Caleb, and tries to fit them together into a picture that makes sense.

Fjord went into the meeting expecting correction, and he left with a sack of coins in his pocket, and a story that only a fool would tell to a stranger. Caleb is _hunted,_ he admitted as much. There is nothing to stop him from leaving tonight, from sailing to wherever Caleb hails from and earning greater riches still with a fugitive’s ransom when he arrives. 

It doesn’t make sense.

What sort of _man-_

His muddled thoughts are interrupted by a sharp pain in his stomach, a twinge like burning flame. He sinks onto the bed, clutching his hand to his middle, as the sudden pain recedes. He missed supper, Fjord remembers suddenly, but the dining hall will be closed by now. 

Tomorrow morning, he’ll go to the shops, and buy fresh currant buns. Three a silver: no longer an extravagance. He could buy the whole bakery out with the coin he has now - the coin Caleb gave to him, without even proof Fjord will work long enough to repay the debt.

_Don’t carry fear of me in your heart._

It’s the only instruction Caleb insisted upon. Fjord’s not sure he could disobey, even if he wanted to.

The next day dawns, sunny and warm. The guards at the castle gate, Yasha among them, let Fjord through without question. No seal or slip is required to prove he has the groundsmaster’s permission to go. 

He walks among the colourful people of the city, taller and shorter and richer and poorer than him, and he speaks to no one, but he lets himself watch their goings-on, and enjoy the fragments of conversations he hears. He even wanders by the blacksmith’s shop, and though Fjord doesn’t have the courage to go up and knock, the sight of the orc’s shadow through the shaded window doesn’t fill him with the same terror as it did before.

Something’s changed, he realizes, though he can’t articulate what. 

The tailor’s shop is the first place he goes, and buys enough clothes to fill the chest in his room. A light linen shirt in blue, to keep the heat off during the hottest parts of the day, and one in grey for the cooler evenings. A mantle of green, near the same colour as the torn shirt Nila dyed for him, with silver clasps at the throat and arm. A hat, wide-brimmed and rural-made, as much to hide his face as to protect against the sun’s rays. Boots, for a gold piece, and four silver on top. When he’s paid, he still has fifty gold and change left in his purse.

He buys food as well: crackers and aged cheese, salt pork and jarred lemon slices in syrup - enough for a few days’ journey, if he needs to leave in a hurry. At the last moment, he also snatches a final item from the grocer’s stall: strawberries, only just arrived from Alfield. They won’t survive the week, but Jester will surely be able to find something to do with them. His heart warms as he tucks them into his basket and thinks about the sunny smile they’ll bring to Jester’s face. 

His last purchase is the hardest to find, and takes him to a far fancier store than the street sellers. There, he at last discovers a packet of sea salt, crystals freshly distilled from the Lucidean. The shopkeeper asks if he needs a mortar and pestle to go along with his purchase, but he refuses, and tucks the little brown packet in alongside his other provisions before walking to the edge of town. Again, the guards let him through without comment, and he spends the rest of the afternoon climbing. 

The valley’s slope leads him out through fields and farms, back to the edge of the Savalirwood, where its diseased border trails into a more verdant green. Looking down onto the city from its highest point, Fjord takes the packet of salt from his basket, unwraps the brown paper, and scatters its contents into the air. The breeze catches a few of the crystals and carries them down into the valley, out of sight. The rest fall on the ground at his feet. 

Fjord bows his head. Vandran never cared much for sentimental words, so he won’t say any aloud. The sea has him now, as it always would have e’re long, and Fjord is glad that at least that his body is buried where it belongs. But in his heart, he breathes a single word - not for Vandran’s sake, but for his own.

_Goodbye._

Then he takes his basket in hand, and begins the long walk back towards the city gates.


	9. Bloom (The Greenhouse)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the late update, all - I had some family stuff to take care of. Hopefully a long-awaited introduction makes up for the tardiness of the chapter :)

Caleb, true to his word, has a new assignment waiting for Fjord when he returns to his office the next morning.

“As much as the prince is unwilling to admit it, our greenhouse is something of a hazard at the moment. It hasn’t seen repairs in years, and I worry there might be broken glass or boards hidden beneath the plants. If you could, go and assess the damage, and fix what you can.”

Fjord slips away from Caleb’s office after receiving his assignment, heart as easy as it’s ever been, following a conversation with a superior. Caleb’s demeanor was much the same as their last meeting, though perhaps less agitated than before, likely owing to Fjord’s own, more relaxed bearing. 

Seeing Caleb now, it’s hard to believe he could have misjudged him so greatly at the outset. The detachment Fjord read as disapproval reveals its true form in nervous gestures, in the petting of his cat and the way he fiddles with his quill as he and Fjord talk. Caleb seems as uncertain as Fjord when he’s not in the business of dispensing sage advice, and that makes it easier to accept his words for what they are, rather than what tricks might lie beneath.

Newly confident from Caleb’s assurances, Fjord finally has the peace of mind to think of his main objective, and he spends an hour wandering the halls of the castle after leaving the office, searching for signs of Sabian. If someone were to ask, he’d have said he was lost, but the small traffic Fjord passes on his journey have their own errands, and he’s never once questioned about his being wherever he is. His new clothing feels like a flimsy disguise, but with the hat pulled low and long blue sleeves covering his wrists, anyone would need to peer closely to recognize him even as a half-orc, let alone the sailor Sabian tried and failed to kill.

Fjord manages to discover a basic layout of the castle with little trouble, despite the confusing twists and turns of its halls. The whole affair is rectangular, ringed by colonnades around the outside wall. Chambers and receiving rooms make up the majority of the ground floor. The only truly unusual feature is the kitchen: placed on the ground floor as well, and near the outer wall no less. Ordinarily, a kitchen would be _below_ ground, scuttling the labouring servants out of sight, so that food might appear as if by magic on the plates of the nobles above. But in Savalir’s castle, the space is bright and sunny and spacious. Its windows open up onto the grounds, bringing in fresh air to the servants within, and conveying the sweet scents of the morning’s breakfast out into the field beyond. 

To Fjord’s disappointment, Jester is nowhere in sight. He leaves the strawberries with another cook, after obtaining a promise to deliver them to her mistress. She giggles and blushes, her eyes alight with possibilities as she looks him up and down, and he strides off quickly, before he has time to contemplate what storied embellishments the cook might add to his gift, and lose his nerve in the process.

The second floor proves more difficult to scout than the first. More doors are closed, more voices murmur behind them, and Fjord only manages a quick walk-through before the sight of unfamiliar nobles in fine dress compels him to change course. The only room he manages to peruse in any detail is a grand reception hall, which he stumbles upon in the aftermath of that heart-pounding encounter.

He surmises without difficulty that the hall must be the throne room. Through the broad arch that serves at its entryway, Fjord spies a number of chairs lining a stone dias at the far end. One stands more prominently forward than the rest, its smooth wood draped in a many-layered mantle of fabric, that ripples in the light breeze from the windows. 

He doesn’t dare tread beyond a step or two further into the room. Whatever the rules of this castle, intruding on a sacred space like this one would be suspicious at best, cause for expulsion at worst. But he looks, and admires, and the image lingers with him even as he continues on throughout the rest of the floor: of one chair among six, standing alone.

The last bit of architecture he adds to his imagined layout are the three spires - elegant turrets that climb story upon story into the sky. Though Fjord never climbed so high in Port Damali’s castle, if tradition serves, the royal family’s residence should be located in the tallest. Caleb’s office is in the second, and perhaps his quarters as well. 

He can hazard a guess that honoured guests would be housed in the third. Sabian did say that the wedding wasn’t to take place until a month or so after they arrived, to give the two princes time to get acquainted, and for Sabian to settle into his new home. Unless the attraction was heady from the start, he doubts the two share quarters yet. For now, the third spire remains the likeliest place for him to be.

Reluctantly, Fjord ends his scouting mission there. Though the reckless part of him clamours to keep searching, venturing up into the spires in broad daylight would be foolish to the point of stupidity. There’s too great a risk of running into either Sabian’s guard or the royal family’s, and trespassing on either one could be a death sentence. Instead, he exits out onto the grounds, satisfied at least that he has a closer guess as to Sabian’s whereabouts.

He remembers the vague direction of the greenhouse, which Yasha pointed out on their tour. It’s nestled amongst a sprawling garden, far larger than the vegetable patches scattered between the pastures, near the eastern edge of the grounds. Even so, it takes him longer than it should to actually _find_ the building, obscured as it is by the rampant overgrowth that surrounds it. Gnarled vines tumble out onto the broken path, blocking his route at every turn with grasping fingers and sharp thorns. The vines scratch at his shins and catch in the laces of his boots, threatening to send him tumbling into their toothy embrace. Though there are flowers interspersed among the less pleasant flora, and more mushrooms than he can count, the overall impression is that of a wild, untamed wilderness, within which the tall walls of the greenhouse are the only oasis. 

Fjord stumbles at last onto the step of the building, panting and sweating from the difficult journey. Within its glass roof and wooden walls, things are a little tidier, but only just. Though the plants still run rampant, there seems to have been at least an effort at pruning and cultivation in recent months. At the very least, he can walk a few feet in each direction without worrying about tearing his new shirt. 

Still, he sees what Caleb meant about the space being a hazard. The wilder plants within creep their way into the structure of the building itself, pushing out through every available crack in their search for sunlight. The curved windows that make up the roof are shattered in many places, and the slats between the ones that remain are warped by rainwater and wind alike. Though there should be copious light to see by, given the nature of the building, the extremities of the greenhouse are shaded by the masses of vegetation crawling along the interior of the ceiling, allowing only irregular strips of sunlight to pass through to the middle, while the rest lingers in cool darkness. 

Brushing aside leaves and branches as he goes, Fjord makes a ring around the edge of the greenhouse, assessing the damage. The building is deeper than it appeared from the exterior, and by the time he reaches the far wall, any sliver of the door is long gone from his sight. The plants grow even thicker in the bowels of their earthen home, and if his eyes weren’t naturally suited to darkness, he’d have been completely blind. 

Even so, Fjord’s foot inevitably collides with something heavy and immoveable, and he swears, nearly losing his balance as he stumbles away from the offending object. He looks down, then up, squinting through watering eyes at the obstruction that blocks his path. 

Before him, all draped in shadows of green and brown, is a statue of a woman. Her hair is long and curled, woven with fronds of stone and plant alike. She sits with her knees bowed, her hands beckoning, as though to gather all comers into her open arms. At the base of the statue sits a stone slab, which Fjord concludes must be what he stubbed his foot on. Its edges are hidden in dense growth, but he can just barely make out the shape of words engraved on its face. Fjord kneels and brushes away the dirt and debris from the stone’s face, revealing four lines of verse, carved below the woman’s feet:

_Seek my love beyond the sea_  
_Seek my heart on tidal shore_  
_Reclaim the stone that long was lost_  
_And life will bloom once more_

A crunching sound accosts his ears. Fjord startles, looking back nervously at the sound of approaching footsteps. He hadn’t heard the door open, nor had Caleb mentioned anyone else coming to meet him. He quickly stands and puts his back to the statue, praying he hasn’t touched anything he wasn’t meant to. 

A tall figure steps from behind the curled curtain of plants, into the scattered bits of light from above: willowy and thin, and draped in a tunic of mint and silver. His face bears the same soft features as Nila’s - a broad nose, smooth skin mottled with patches of fur, and gentle eyes, open wide with surprise as they light on Fjord. In his hand, he holds a pair of pruning shears, and his bare feet are dusty, though absent the same scrapes that mar Fjord’s ankles.

“...Hello,” Fjord says, brushing himself off hastily, with less care than he did for the statue’s inscription. 

“Hello.” The answer rumbles from the stranger’s chest, low and warm and confused, but not displeased, at Fjord’s presence. His hair is as long as his dress, swept to one side and braided near the bottom with wisps of yellow flowers. At first, Fjord thinks the tresses are pure white, but as the stranger tilts his head to the side, the sunlight catches glimmers of pink folded throughout: a rose blush amidst the pale strands.

Fjord might have supposed from the hair colour and the gravelly voice that the man was far older than him, but no wizened lines split his face, and the light in his eyes is youthful. Though he can’t guess with surety, considering their difference in race, he thinks they might be about the same age. 

“I’m Fjord,” he says at last, striding forward and trying not only to embody, but to _believe_ the confidence Caleb implored him to have. He’s just an employee here, equal to all the others. This is as good a time as any to start acting like it. “Sorry if I startled you, I know we haven’t met before. I was just hired this week.” He glances down at the shears. “You’re the gardener, I’m guessing?”

“...I suppose I am.” The stranger seems momentarily caught off guard by Fjord’s address, but his response is pleased enough, a hint of a tentative smile settling at the corners of his mouth. He stares at Fjord’s outstretched hand for a long moment, as though not quite sure what to do with it, but eventually, he takes it in his own. His fingers are long and calloused, no doubt roughened by working with the thorny vines at their feet, and Fjord gives them a firm shake before dropping his arm back to his side. “Caduceus. Caduceus Clay.”

He fixes Fjord with a strange look, one that Fjord is at a loss to interpret. His best guess is… anticipation? Or… resignation? But why should he be resigned, when they’ve barely begun to speak?

“Nice to meet you, Caduceus.” A sudden thought occurs to him, and Fjord hastily amends, “Is it alright if I call you Caduceus?” Maybe Caduceus’s discomfort springs from a dislike of his given name? He could certainly relate to that sentiment.

“Yes,” Caduceus says slowly. There’s still something strange in his eyes - like he was expecting a different question, or a different response, from Fjord. “I… I think I’d like that.”

“Well, alright,” Fjord says, grinning with relief to see some of the resignation fade into pleasant curiousity again. “That’s settled then.”

The conversation falters, leading to a silence that feels awkward to Fjord, but Caduceus doesn’t seem bothered by it. He surveys Fjord with an intrigued sort of look, the expression on his face more bemused by the second. Fjord imagines it’s akin to how he looked when he met Nila. Like Fjord is a strange and unexpected creature - a mystery, but one worth solving.

“What do you do here, Fjord?”

“Ah, well.” That’s a question _he’s_ still trying to figure out the answer to. “Whatever Caleb asks me to, I guess. Today, I’m supposed to be seeing what I can fix up in the greenhouse.” Right at that moment his toe gives a mighty throb, and he glances down with sudden worry at Caduceus’s bare feet. Beneath the fur, they’re as calloused as his fingers, but even thick skin can’t protect against shards of glass. If Caduceus is often in the greenhouse working, no wonder Caleb was so insistent the place be repaired. “Maybe you could give me a hand, if you have time? Show me where the worst spots are? I imagine it can’t be easy, doing your job in a place like this.”

Caduceus follows his eyes up to the savaged roof. “Ah, I see. It’s gotten worse, hasn’t it? I hadn’t noticed.”

Fjord’s not sure how that’s possible, considering the state of disrepair. But maybe if a person is accustomed to a broken environment, it’s hard to envision how much better things could be. 

“Well, the roof definitely needs to be refitted, pretty much entirely. That’s going to take a while.” He frowns. “Sorry, I think you’re going to have to get used to me being here. I’ll try to work around your schedule, if that would make things easier for you?”

“Oh, it won’t bother me if you’re here.”

“Are you sure?”

Caduceus smiles, soft under the pale light. “I wouldn’t mind a little company, every now and then.”

Caduceus gets to work pruning, unconcerned about the dirt that works its way the front of his clean tunic as he kneels to tend the underbrush. He thumbs under his breath as he moves along the row of plants. Fjord goes back to assessing the damage, occasionally bothering Caduceus for help in finding his way through the densest patches of vegetation. 

If it _is_ a bother, his new companion doesn’t show it. Every smile is easy as he guides Fjord through hidden paths within the greenhouse. The plants - that seemed determined to tear into Fjord’s skin only an hour before - part without malice at Caduceus’s gentle touch. By the end of the day, their joined movement is almost a dance, with Fjord dipping under Caduceus’s arm to step through brambled archways, and Caduceus twisting with lithe grace as he slips his body into the spaces that remain. There are seven inches of height between them, but Fjord is stockier, and each of the two fits perfectly within the hollow of the other. There isn’t much conversation, but there are sounds aplenty to occupy their ears - the rustle of leaves, the creak of old wood, the call of nesting birds in the broken rafters above. 

By the end of the day, Fjord can confidently conclude he doesn’t mind a little company either.

“Should I look for you tomorrow?” he asks, as he kneels over the pile of collected glass at his feet. He’ll bring a basket tomorrow, to gather it up and take it away someplace safer. For now, knowing where the danger lies at least makes it easier to walk without worrying about each footfall.

“I don’t think I’ll be here.” Fjord tries not to let any disappointment creep onto his face. Having someone else to work beside made the day pass far quicker than it would have otherwise. He can’t tell if it’s the newfound peace from his resolution with Caleb, or Caduceus’s calm countenance, or some combination of the two, but for the first time in a long time, he doesn’t feel _watched_ by another’s presence. No phantom eyes linger on his back, eager for the first trace of failure. He can just _be,_ unworried and unchanged. It’s a comforting thought - to know he’s capable of it, even after all these years.

Fjord looks up to meet Caduceus’s eyes, and finds there an unexpected sort of indecision. Caduceus worries his lip, glancing off to the side before speaking again. “I’ll be here the day after,” he says at last, “if I can… I’ll try to finish with my other duties before then.”

No doubt the vegetable patches need more frequent attention than whatever decorative plants live within the greenhouse. Fjord nods, understanding, but still happy to discover he won’t have to wait long for good company again.

“Till then.” He grins, tipping his hat with two fingers.

“Till then,” Caduceus echoes softly, and Fjord heads off for supper. The last thing he sees before the night claims his limited vision is Caduceus standing in the centre of the greenhouse, only the halo of his hair lit by the fading light. The shears still hang loosely from one hand as he stares after Fjord through the open door. Then he shakes his head, and disappears beyond the curtain of plants once more. 

It’s only a short walk from the greenhouse back to the little cluster of servant dwellings. As Fjord passes by the house to the left of his own, he glances at the window, wondering if he’ll see yellow pinpricks between the crack in the curtains. But tonight, he spies a new pair of eyes: curious brown ones, smaller and rounder than the previous watcher, and half-hidden beneath childish curls. 

Hesitantly, he raises a hand and gives the boy a little wave. The boy grins and waves back, before turning away to answer a muffled call from farther within the house. He doesn’t stay long at the window, but flashes Fjord one more crooked grin before he bounds back out of sight. Fjord is left with the same warmth in his chest that he felt in Nila’s hut, after an evening of Asar’s curious attentions. Whatever the world at large might think of him, the children of Savalir are happy for his presence, and that’s more than enough for him.

With no Yasha waiting outside his door, Fjord unlocks the door to his own cabin and slips inside. He grabs the lantern, intending to head to the outhouse to wash the dirt from his hands before going to the dining hall, but pauses, as quiet sounds of rustling grass and breaking twigs begin to drift through the open door. His hand freezes around the metal handle. 

The footsteps, though still enough out of place to be distinguished from normal nighttime sounds, have the practiced tread of sneak thieves and pickpockets. _And assassins,_ his racing mind supplies. His fingers tighten over the lantern’s handle, as he braces to turn on his heel and swing with all his might at whoever steps through the door.

But just like the last time, he’s not quick enough to dodge a blow from a trained assailant. Before he can manage a single step, a muscled arm wraps around his neck and starts pulling him backwards towards the door. The lantern slips from his grasp, clattering to its side on the table. 

“Found him!” the intruder shouts to their accomplice, and all he sees are bright, smiling teeth, as they drag Fjord out of his little nest of safety and back into the uncertain night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Check out the _incredible_ [art](https://thecruixe.tumblr.com/post/622043809290895360/the-last-thing-he-sees-before-the-night-claims-his) that thecruixe did of a scene from this chapter!


	10. Pulque (The Tavern)

The arm drags Fjord through the door, and Fjord… panics.

If he called for help, would the neighbours hear? The cabin, with brown eyes and yellow at the window, it’s only a dozen feet away, but what if the boy runs out? He can’t have a child’s blood on his hands, and he doesn’t put it past Sabian to kill any innocent, not after what he did to Vandran. 

They wouldn’t murder him on the doorstep, where anyone could see the blood. Sabian is too smart for that. They’ll take him away, far away, and hide the body when they’re done. Which means right now is his one and only chance for escape. 

Fjord sucks in a breath, training his elbow for the gut of his captor, as he prays that what strength he has is enough to break loose, whatever speed he can muster will get him to the dining hall before they catch up.

On three, he’ll run.

_1-_

_2-_

_3-_

“Fjord!”

The resolve dies in his throat as out of the darkness, a familiar blue face steps into view. Black horns, violet eyes: Jester, smiling for all the world like she’s come to visit with a cupful of sugar, and not like she’s witnessing an attempted murder before her eyes. 

“Jester,” he calls out weakly, “help-”

“Beau.” Jester puts her hands on her hips and turns to the person holding him and says sternly, “You’re strangling Fjord. Let him go.”

“Shit. Oops.” As the arm releases from around his neck, Fjord turns to meet the face of his captor, equally familiar to Jester’s now he can see her features properly. Beau holds up her hands in a motion of peace. “Sorry man, just playing around.” 

“No, it’s- it’s alright,” Fjord says, rubbing a hand at his neck. Now that the panic is receding, he can see his supposed attackers for what they are: two maybe-friends, standing sheepishly on his doorstep, with no flicker of malice in their eyes. It was his fear that made Beau’s grin ghoulish in the dim light. Her grip hadn’t even been that tight - a friendly embrace, more than a stranglehold. It had been his own throat that closed.

Fjord lets out a shuddering breath. Paranoia will make all shadows look like enemies, if he lets it run away with him. He refuses to let Sabian ruin anything else in his life, new friendships included.

“So… what are you guys doing here?”

“Looking for you, silly!” Jester nudges him with her shoulder, and he finds himself leaning into the touch, if only to ground him in the light-headed wake of relief.

“You still owe me that drink,” Beau reminds him, “and I don’t forget a promise.” She taps her nose, wicked grin quickly replacing her momentary remorse.

“We looked all over for you: in the _dining hall,_ in the _castle,_ with _Caleb-”_ Jester lists off, with no sign of ending her recitation before Beau interrupts.

“I told her you were probably still working.”

“And I told _Beau_ that nobody works that long! It’s almost ten at night!” 

Beau snorts through her nose. “I was right though, wasn’t I?”

Jester pouts, but concedes, “Fine. You were right.”

“Anyways, we were gonna sit outside and wait for you to show up, but _someone-”_

“Don’t blame me, I could hear you snoring too!”

“-fell asleep.”

Looking more closely, Fjord can now see little bits of grass and twig sticking up in Jester’s hair, and that Beau’s ribbon is partially undone. He’s starting to get a better picture of the situation, and what little fear was still within his chest bubbles instead into an urge to laugh at the absurd sight the two make: still sleepy in their day clothes, unkempt and uncaring.

“Anyway, we woke up when the door opened, and thought we’d surprise you,” Beau finishes.

“Well, you did. Good job.”

“But now that we’ve found you, we can go out! I’m _starving,”_ Jester moans. “How are you not starving, Fjord?”

“Good constitution, I guess,” Fjord mumbles. He’s probably been hungry for a while, but only now is his stomach finally beginning to rumble. It was too easy to lose track of time in the greenhouse’s shade. The sun had set so abruptly, he’d barely noticed it was gone. 

The three of them set out towards town, Jester swinging on Fjord’s arm and chattering all the way. Beau walks a few steps ahead of the pair and looks back every so often, frowning at their slower pace, but in a good-natured way. 

“-and Yasha’s sorry she couldn’t come, but Caleb gave her a new assignment this week, and she had to leave this morning. She definitely would have, though, if she wasn’t working. She really likes you, Fjord. She told me so.”

He opens his mouth to reply, but she’s already moved on to the next topic before he can get a word in. Beau flashes him a knowing smirk.

“Oh my gosh, I almost forgot - thank you _so much_ for the strawberries! I can’t believe you remembered! I already ate a bunch of them, but I made sure to save some to make us pie tomorrow! You really are _such_ a gentleman,” Jester coos, squeezing his arm, and Beau’s previously sympathetic eyes narrow, smirk fading to a scowl as she slowly turns back around to face Fjord.

“Oh no,” she growls, pointing an accusing finger at his nose, “you _didn’t.”_

“What?”

“I _told_ you not to encourage her!” Beau moans, heaving a long-suffering sigh as she smacks her forehead with her other hand. “Now I’m never going to hear the end of it.”

“Just like Oskar, when he gave Genevieve the fish he’d caught for their stew...” Jester says dreamily, oblivious to Beau’s less than pleased response.

Fjord clears his throat, too embarrassed to meet Jester’s gaze once he understands Beau’s meaning. Like twigs and undone ribbons, he’s starting to get the picture. “Glad you liked them.”

“Oh, I did, I really did.” How is it possible for her eyes to sparkle like that, with so little light to reflect? Maybe it’s the firelight from the castle gates- 

Which, speaking of…

“Coming through!” Fjord calls out, bounding up to address the guards, and extricating his arm from Jester’s increasingly tight grip in the process.

The tavern they head towards turns out to be the same one where he and Jester ate dinner, only a week before. Judging by the boisterous evening crowd, it’s a local favourite, and once the food is ordered and the first round of shots laid out before them, Fjord finally starts to properly relax. The whiskey burns through his belly in a pleasant way, fire passing between his limbs and loosening taut muscles as it spreads, until he’s a puddle of bones against the table. Beau easily keeps pace, and while the two of them make swift progress towards a blissful drunken haze, Jester sips on a glass of cold milk and laughs, and laughs, and laughs, and without a single drop of alcohol to loosen her voice, she’s still the loudest of the three. 

He gets the sense the two women are regulars here, from the way the waiter smiles and nods at Jester’s strange order. It should leave him feeling out of place, but both talk to him, and with him, like he’s been a part of their group for years. Soon enough they’re all chatting like old friends, and with three shots below his loosened belt, his inhibitions are finally sufficiently cowed to let curiousity override caution once more.

“So, what’s the deal with the royal family?” he asks. He’d been wondering ever since his first conversation with Jester. “How come everyone only talks about the prince? Doesn’t he have any other family?”

Beau is fully drunk now, but still more lucid than Fjord. She holds her liquor well - another check in her sea-faring favour, Fjord decides, and wonders hazily what she’d look like in a tricorne hat. Pointy, probably. 

“Yeah, I mean, there’s a whole royal family, for sure, but I haven’t met any of the rest of them. Have you, Jessie?”

“Nope! They were all gone by the time I got here.” 

“Where did they go?”

“Far as I understand it, they’re off searching for the answer to some _prophecy.”_ Beau waggles her fingers around her head, the physical equivalent of a sarcastic _ooo_. “Supposedly it’s going to help them fix whatever’s wrong with the Savalirwood.” 

Fjord nods, remembering the barren trees, and Kitor’s unlikely explanation. “You believe that? That a prophecy can cure the forest?” He’s still not convinced it’s anything more than woodrot or some other disease that afflicts the Savalirwood, but so long into the night, draped in the soft tallow glow of the candles, with whiskey in his veins and music in his ears, magical curses don’t seem quite so impossible as they once did.

“Nah.” Beau takes another swig of ale. “I’m not superstitious. This one is, though,” she says, jabbing her thumb at Jester. “And the royal family sure was. Or is, I guess, if any of them are still out there. The prince is still here in Savalir, so maybe he didn’t believe in it as much as them.”

“I hope he stays,” Jester says, looking down dejectedly into her glass. “I’d be so sad if he moved to Port Damali after the wedding. I still feel like we’ve barely gotten to know him! He’s been so tired lately, and he never wants to go out to town anymore. But what if Prince Sabian asks him to go? He’ll have to, right?”

“I don’t think so,” Beau answers thoughtfully. “The king of Port Damali is still alive, right? Prince Sabian wouldn’t inherit that throne until after his father dies. Makes more sense for them to stay here, especially since they’d be leaving the throne of Savalir empty if they left.”

“But the royal family would come back then, right? Because the curse would be broken! And then the prince could go wherever he wanted to, because someone else could rule again!”

Fjord blinks rapidly, unsure if it’s the liquor that’s caused him to miss a step in Jester’s explanation, or if the middle piece was absent to begin with. Beau notes his befuddled expression and turns to him. “Jester’s convinced that this wedding’s actually part of the prophecy, somehow.” She raises a dubious eyebrow, but Jester’s excitement is not to be deterred.

“It has to be! That’s how _all_ the stories go, Beau - the prince has to find his true love, and then they kiss, and the curse is broken!”

“This isn’t a fairytale, Jess. Pretty sure this marriage has a lot less to do with fulfilling a prophecy, and a lot more to do with plain old boring politics.”

“What does that mean?” Fjord asks, leaning forward a little too rapidly and holding the edge of the table as the world begins to spin, from drunkenness and realization both.

Until this point, he hasn’t given much thought as to _why_ Sabian was sent to Savalir in the first place. Fjord hadn’t felt it was his place to ask during their time together on the boat, and Sabian never volunteered much about his own feelings on the matter, beyond general excitement at the new life awaiting him. But there must be a bigger reason for the marriage, or else why would it happen, between two men who’d never once met.

“You know, old chums renewing alliances, and all that.” Beau waves her hand, as though the meaning in her words is obvious. “Port Damali and Savalir used to be sister cities, right? Then there was the whole falling out, the claims of independence, the hurt feelings, blah blah blah-”

Fjord is abruptly asea, stranded in an ocean of learned history he’s never been privy to. “Sister cities?” Jester cocks her head at him, equally confused by his confusion.

“Don’t you know about that, Fjord? I mean, you’re from-” 

His eyes widen at the same moment as hers do. Jester’s hands make an abortive movement towards her mouth - only a flicker of a motion, but Beau’s keen gaze narrows, eyeing them both. “What?” she asks.

“I was just going to say, because Fjord’s from the Menagerie Coast, like me!” Jester giggles, taking a quick sip of her milk. “Isn’t that such a crazy coincidence, Beau?”

Fjord tries to thank Jester with his eyes, though from the way Beau is still looking between them, he doesn’t think she missed the hesitation in Jester’s response. Still, he picks up the thread of Jester’s words and tries to salvage what he can, before Beau can think too long about why Jester would be reluctant to reveal Fjord’s place of birth.

“That’s right. But I wasn’t much- I didn’t have much schooling, growing up. I never learned anything about the history of the Coast.”

“That’s ok, Fjord, we can teach you!”

“Yeah,” Beau says. “I have way too many lectures crammed into my brain anyway. Happy to share the load.” She straightens up, grabbing a breadstick from Jester’s plate and wielding it like an instructor’s baton as she begins her explanation. “So, the way my tutors told it, the reason for the alliance was economic, at first. Makes sense, right? Savalir and Port Damali are on the total opposite sides of the continent, so if they banded together, then their joint trade routes would cover the whole expanse of the Lucidean. No tariffs, consolidated regulations, easy immigration - a big win for everyone. That worked really well, for a while. Business was booming, got some good old cultural exchange going on. Art, customs, even religion - you name it, the two countries shared it.”

“Sounds like a pretty good deal. What happened?”

“That’s the tricky part. Because it happened a long time ago, nobody can agree on who actually ended the alliance. On one hand, Port Damali is much more vulnerable to attack than Savalir, since it’s on the coast, and Savalir’s got the wood to protect it, so it’s never really needed to defend itself. Some people think that’s the reason: that Port Damali didn’t like being tied down by the policies of another country, that they felt they couldn’t fight off pirates or invading neighbours while being governed by a bunch of pacifists.” Fjord nods, thinking of the high sea walls and fortified castle ramparts of Port Damali. That’s certainly something he could believe about his home country. “Other people blame Savalir for the split. The theory is that the country had become too isolationist, and they weren’t interested in the affairs of the rest of the world anymore, since their own culture and economy had gotten so strong.” Beau shrugs. “Doesn’t really matter much who’s right, I guess. Either way, the alliance ended, and after that things went pretty downhill for Port Damali. Once they lost their ties with Savalir, they lost their trading monopoly too, and Nicodranas became the new hub of the Menagerie Coast-”

“Because it’s prettier,” Jester adds, “and there’s more fun stuff to do there.”

“I mean, you’re not wrong, Jess. Big scary palisades aren’t exactly conducive to tourism, and that’s pretty much what the Menagerie Coast is known for at this point. Anyways, the point-” Beau finishes her ale with one enormous gulp, burps, then brandishes her baton again- “the _point,_ is that it doesn’t surprise me that Port Damali would want to renew the alliance, and a royal marriage is a great way to do that. What I don’t understand is why _Savalir_ would agree to it. It doesn’t make sense. Nobody’s going hungry, nobody’s threatening invasion. As far as I can tell, besides the issue with the wood, everything here is pretty much as good as it could be. Savalir doesn’t need an alliance with Port Damali, the same way Port Damali needs one with them.”

“That’s why I think it has to do with the prophecy!” Jester says, taking advantage of Beau’s pause to order another drink to interject. “Don’t you remember, Molly said-”

“Molly said a lot of things,” Beau grumbles under her breath.

“Molly said my destiny was to bring people together! And his predictions were always right! So maybe it’s my destiny to make sure the prince gets his happy ending.”

“Pretty sure you’ve already done that, Jess,” Beau says, flicking her eyes to Fjord with an amused smile. “And I don’t think the prince needs your help. This marriage was already in the works before you or I even got to Savalir. It’s not like something like a political alliance just gets decided on a whim. These kinds of arrangements take years to sort out.” Beau clears her throat, a blush deeper than whiskey’s flush settling onto her cheeks, and Jester tilts her head curiously.

“Why do you say that, Beau?”

“My dad, uh- kind of threatened me with that sort of thing. Before I left. Said that he’d been in talks with one of his business acquaintances in Rexxentrum since I was a kid about it. His son was my age, right, so it made sense. I guess.” She takes another deep sip from her new mug of ale, and sets it down hard enough that foam froths out onto the table. “I’m sure in his head, it killed two birds with one stone. He gets a new way to expand the business, and he gets rid of me too. Pretty hard to make trouble for the family when you’re someone else’s pretty wife.” 

The words, light at first, lose their mirth halfway through, and by the end of her explanation Beau’s hand is shaking around the mug’s handle. Fjord swallows, feeling decidedly more sober than a moment before.

“Well, didn’t end up mattering, did it?” Beau murmurs, still staring down into her drink. “I ran before he got the chance to sign the papers. I’m sure he found some other way to build the business - never really needed me for that, before.”

“Beau, that’s awful,” Jester whispers. She lays her head on Beau’s shoulder, and after a long moment, Beau’s cheek drifts down to rest on top of blue waves.

“Your father would have traded you away, just to get a business partner?” Fjord says softly, or as softly as he can, over the noise of so many other raised voices.

“Yeah,” Beau snorts. It sounds more like a sniffle to Fjord’s ears. “Unbelievable, right?”

Fjord thinks of a tight grasp around his arm, a vindictive sneer, and the man’s pockets, heavy with Vandran’s coin.

“No,” he says. “I believe it.” 

He takes a breath, preparing himself, as Jester starts to stroke Beau’s arm. Beau’s eyes drift away from the mug, watching the movement of Jester’s hand, and nothing else. 

“You asked me before, if I was running from something.” Her lips open, and she glances up at him as Fjord rolls up his sleeve, far enough so she can see the whisper of scars along his forearm and wrist, from all the punishments that never quite healed right. “I was, for a long time. From the man who... who sold me.”

It’s strange to say it, like that. He’s never really put it in those words before, even in his own mind. 

But that _is_ what happened, isn’t it?

“You’re not running anymore?”

“No.” He shakes his head. “Not anymore.”

It’s not quite the truth, but it doesn’t quite feel like a lie, either.

Beau doesn’t smile, but her head dips into a grateful nod after she raises it from Jester’s curls, calling for another drink to replace the one that spilled in the next breath. More ale is brought, they move on to lighter topics, and some of the lighter spirit of the evening is renewed. But Beau looks at him with new eyes now, and Fjord at her, and he wonders at the fact that he’s known her for a week, but she already feels closer to him than any friend he’s ever had. 

They stumble back to the castle in a jovial group with only a few hours of night left to spare. Jester peels off for her quarters in the castle once they’re inside the gates, and Beau towards her own little cabin, leaving Fjord to attempt the rest of the short walk on his own. He manages to unlock his door on the third try, but hurries back outside a few moments later, as a wave of liquor-sick nausea roils through his insides. Fjord leans against the wall of the cabin with one hand, breathing heavily, until at last his stomach empties itself into the grass. Only then does he feel well enough to go inside and sleep off the worst of the night’s revelry. 

In the twilight, he might have seen something odd in the grass at his feet. But his eyes are too bleary from weariness and drink to focus properly, and by the morning, the contents of his stomach will have already soaked into the earth, leaving no trace of what he’d consumed the night before, and what he hadn’t: scattered specks of hardened black, dark against the mess of watery ale and bile. 

But he doesn’t see anything strange, and so Fjord goes to bed without a new worry to add to the ones already weighing on his heart. He awakens with only a headache, and no memory of the dried blood that spilled from his body, mingled with the morning dew.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To all those who guessed 'girls night!' in the comments on the last chapter - congratulations on your intuition :)
> 
> You might notice that I've finally added a chapter count to this fic! I'm pretty confident now in my plan for the remaining chapters, but there's a chance one will run long and I'll end up with sixteen instead of fifteen. Regardless, there certainly won't be _less_ than fifteen chapters, so it seemed like a safe bet :)


	11. Thigmotropism (The Statue)

Though Fjord knows not to look for Caduceus today, he still can’t help his eyes from roving for tufts of pink and white amongst the green as he steps into the greenhouse. It’s well past eleven by the time he arrives to work, allowing time for sleeping off the worst of the pounding in his head and the aching in his gut. Fjord slinks through the door guiltily, but the place is empty - there are no eyes to reprimand his tardiness, but none to see the pathways through dangerous thorns for him either, and the greenhouse seems a little less hospitable than it did the day before.

It takes him a few minutes, and a number of unsavoury words, to realize he’s forgotten to take the basket to collect the broken glass. Sighing, he looks back through the door, towards the garden he’d just spent the last fifteen minutes fighting his way through, with no small number of battle scars to show for it. 

...Tomorrow.

He spends the day alternating between taking measurements of the windows he’ll need to commission from the glassmith in town, and the various curved slats to hold those windows aloft. Fjord discovers a ladder leaning against the outside of the building, which makes the work a little easier, but it’s an old and rickety thing, and he doesn’t dare climb too high without another pair of hands to brace the bottom. Maybe it’s for the best, anyway. A spinning head isn’t well-suited to tasks at great height.

It’s perhaps the most unproductive day Fjord’s had in his life, but without the threat of retribution from Caleb, and with the promise of seeing Caduceus again on the morrow, he leaves the greenhouse with a light heart, and an eagerness to see the next day through.

Sure enough, by the time he arrives the next morning, the greenhouse is again occupied. Caduceus must have finished his other duties promptly, for he’s hard at work tending the groundcover when Fjord steps through the door. He looks up through long strands of hair - loose this time, and shimmering silver in the cool light of morning - and smiles.

“Hello again.” The brightness in his voice lifts into something like surprise at the end, and Fjord’s brow furrows, confused at the shift in tone.

“Hello to you too. ...Were you expecting someone else?”

“No, not at all.” Caduceus stands and brushes the dirt from his knees with dirtier hands. The motion only serves to spread the soil around, and Fjord’s mouth twitches. “I just wasn’t sure if I’d imagined you.”

He blinks, having, in moments of habitual nervousness, had much the same thought the day before. “Well, I’m real. As far as I know.” Then, because Caduceus’s lack of certainty is starting to shake his own, “You’re… you’re real too, right?”

“Yes. As far as I know.” 

Fjord grins, relieved not only by the confirmation that he’s not losing his mind, but by the lack of mocking in Caduceus’s response to his - admittedly, silly - question. “Real enough to help me hold a ladder, I hope?”

“I think I can do that.” Fjord carefully sets the basket he’s at last remembered down by the pile of glass, and Caduceus falls into step behind him as he retrieves the ladder from the front stoop. His looming presence - unseen but for shadows, but still keenly felt - makes Fjord’s neck prickle. But Caduceus’s footsteps are soft despite his height, and there’s no flicker of threat in his presence at his back. Fjord is aware - _deeply_ aware - of him, but not afraid, and when he places the ladder up against the sloped wall, he trusts that those large hands will hold him steady as he climbs towards the shattered sky.

He measures the first of the upper windows with a length of string, knotted at regular intervals, and keeps a mental tally in his head as he goes, to transcribe to paper later. Numbers have always been easier for Fjord than words. Ten bundles of rope at each corner of the deck. Fifty days to the end of the rainy season. Eight hundred furlongs between Port Damali and Feolinn, another two hundred and fifty on to Port Zoon. As Vandran’s quartermaster, he was in charge of the distribution of profits and spoils, so he knew the wage of each crewmember, the daily food allotment required by each, their number of years in service under the flag of the _Tide’s Breath._ So even now, while writing still comes more slowly to him than others his age, numbers remain a balm of assurance: proof that his head is not as empty as Nurse used to claim.

It may be that he becomes too absorbed in the pleasant act of counting, and the steady progress on the task at hand. By the third window, he isn’t paying as close attention as he should be to his situation, and his foot slips on the top rung of the ladder. In the sudden panic of falling, he reaches out to steady himself on the closest surface - which happens to be the edge of the broken window he was about to inspect. Fjord curses as the jagged ridge of glass slices through his palm, forming a line of fiery warmth that stings like a wasp’s nest when he pulls the hand back. He clutches it with his other hand to keep the rivulets of blood from spreading down his arm.

“Are you alright?” Caduceus calls from below, and Fjord answers through gritted teeth.

“Yeah, just… one second. Shit.” He hobbles down the ladder as best he can with only one hand to brace himself, landing unsteadily on the dirt beside Caduceus. Now that he can get a proper look, the hand is a grisly sight. His flesh is torn from thumb to wrist, and even as he draws his other hand away, fresh pulses of red flood from the deep gash, dripping down to the dark earth below. It’s the kind of injury that could end a sailor’s career, if the ship didn’t have a physician skilled enough to stop infection from spreading, and he thinks gratefully of the money hidden beneath his shirt. It’s enough, he hopes, to pay a doctor in town to stitch up the wound. He’d do it himself, but he has no needle and thread, or any place to get them without weathering questions or concern. 

“Let me see?”

Reluctantly, he holds out the hand to Caduceus, who takes it, soothing the involuntary tremblings of shock with his steady thumb. Fjord bites his lip to keep from crying out as Caduceus prods at the edge of the torn skin, while bolts of electricity tear through his scalp and pain lances up his arm. 

“This looks bad,” Caduceus concludes. “I wouldn’t leave that alone to heal.”

“Wasn’t planning on it,” Fjord grits out. “Do you know if the castle has a doctor?” Caduceus is quiet for a moment, and Fjord starts to pull his hand away. “It’s fine if not, I can go to town-”

“I can help,” Caduceus says softly. His hold on Fjord’s hand is loose, but it wraps around the whole of his wrist, his fingers long enough to encircle the smaller bone and touch on the other side. He gently pulls Fjord forward - not towards the door, like Fjord expects, but further into the greenhouse. 

Breath quickened from the pain, Fjord follows, careful to keep up with Caduceus’s long strides so that his grip isn’t forced to tighten around the wound and aggravate it further. But whenever he lags, Caduceus slows, and he holds the bowers up for Fjord to pass under, so that Fjord never once has to duck his head as they make their way together towards the rear of the greenhouse. Once they reach the statue’s secluded resting place, Caduceus nods his head to the stone woman, closing his eyes and muttering a few quick words. Then he turns back to Fjord, and covers the remainder of the injured hand with his other palm. 

Red seeps out from between his pale knuckles as Caduceus continues to mutter in a language Fjord doesn’t know, and he squeezes his eyes closed as the pain reaches a crescendo. 

He wants to tell Caduceus to stop. That his fingers are too dirty to be near an open gash. That a wound can’t be closed with pressure alone. That it _hurts,_ and he is afraid to be hurt by another’s hands again.

“Breathe with me,” Caduceus says, and Fjord does what he’s told. As he pulls in air, the pain begins to ease, the flashing sparks behind his eyelids transforming to a gentler cacophony of red and yellow lines. The pain becomes a buzzing, like thousands of legged insects crawling over the divot of his palm, and then that fades too, to a dull throb - in time with a heartbeat that he only realizes isn’t his own when Caduceus’s hands release his.

Fjord opens his eyes and looks down. His hand is still soaked in red, but the gash is closed. In its place is a raised scar, like the one that he found over his eye after the ocean spit him out. Fjord flexes the hand, eyes wide with disbelief. The skin is taut, but not inflexible. Impossibly, he has full use of his hand again.

“What did you just do?” Fjord breathes.

“I didn’t do anything.” Caduceus’s eyes flit to the statue behind them. “She did.”

Fjord turns his head to regard the stone woman. There’s still something about her face that’s familiar to Fjord, like a detail left over from a childhood dream, and he walks towards the statue, reaching out the injured hand to touch the curve of the woman’s face. The stone is cool, and it soothes the aching in his palm that remains, until the only feeling left in his chest is a sense of peace, and a desperate yearning to curl up at the stone’s feet, and to feel safe once more. 

“Who is she?”

“Some outside Savalir call her Melora, but I have always known her as the Wildmother.” 

A thought springs to Fjord’s mind, of another woman hidden, but not lost, in a deep tangle of overgrowth.

“I met someone in the Savalirwood,” he murmurs. “A woman named Nila. She told me that the ‘Mother’ had led me to her family.” His hand drifts to his stomach, clasped over the infection that should have killed him, healed by her gentle hand. But was it _her_ hand, that healed him? “Is the Wildmother who she was talking about?”

“The Wildmother watches over the Savalirwood. She may well have been watching over you too.”

Fjord shakes his head, turning over the multitude of questions tumbling through his mind. _How is this possible? Is this magic, or a trick, or something else?_ He doesn’t even know when to begin. But when he turns back to Caduceus, he finds the man leaning against a bushel of vines, the light in his pink eyes gone dull as he takes shallow breaths, steadying himself with a trembling hand. Fjord rushes to him and takes him by the arm, holding him up so that he doesn’t collapse.

“Are you alright?” he asks. Caduceus lets out a low, weak chuckle. 

“Just a little tired. Nothing you need to worry about.”

“Here, you should sit.” Fjord guides him down to the ground, and Caduceus goes without resisting, allowing Fjord to ferry him to the soft earth. “Have you eaten anything today?”

Caduceus frowns, considering the question for much too long for Fjord’s comfort. That’s answer enough. “I’ll be right back.”

“It’s alright, I-” Caduceus starts, but Fjord is already rushing towards the entrance of the greenhouse. Reaching inside the basket, he pulls out the hunk of cheese and bread he’d taken for his own lunch, and the waterskin as well, remembering only at the last second to use his unbloodied hand. Then he runs back to the statue, where Caduceus is waiting. For once, the plants don’t seem interested in snagging him as he goes. 

“First, wash your hands,” Fjord instructs as he kneels and uncorks the waterskin with his teeth. He pours water over Caduceus’s outstretched palms, then his own, until the liquid runs clear. Then he unwraps the food and passes it to Caduceus.

“You really don’t need to-”

“I had a big breakfast,” Fjord says, waving his hand nonchalantly. “You look like you could use it more.”

After a long pause, Caduceus nods, and takes a small bite of the cheese. His hands are still shaking, and now that they’re sitting still together, Fjord finally takes the time to finally take proper stock of his companion. The body beneath his tunic is thin, almost _too_ thin: his elbows jut out from beneath his sleeves, and the sallows of his cheeks are pronounced. His hair is undeniably beautiful, with its interwoven white and pink highlights, but the strands are brittle near the tips, like all their moisture has been drained into the air.

In the castle of Port Damali, Fjord wouldn’t have been surprised by seeing signs of malnutrition in another servant; withholding food was a common enough punishment, for any number of offences. But he can’t imagine Jester ever letting someone go hungry intentionally. 

As Caduceus eats, a little colour begins to return to his cheeks, and his appetite flourishes as well. His bites become larger, and after a few minutes of chewing he looks down at his hands, perplexed by the discovery that they’re empty.

“I’m sorry,” he says, looking back up at Fjord. “This was your food, and I ate all of it.”

“That’s what it’s for,” Fjord reminds him. “Are you feeling better?”

“Yes,” Caduceus nods. “Much.” And because his voice sounds stronger, Fjord believes him.

“Does this happen often?”

“Once in a while. I forget to eat, sometimes…” Caduceus says vaguely, but Fjord presses anyway, not willing to accept that incomplete answer when he can see the evidence of Caduceus’s body right before him. If someone is being mistreated here, he wants to know about it.

“Is that it? Just forgetting to eat?”

Caduceus’s tongue works in his mouth, and when he finally meets Fjord’s eyes again, his hands are scrunched into the fabric that wrapped the bread and cheese. “I have… I’ve been ill, perhaps more than most people tend to be.” Again, he stares at Fjord like he expects some specific acknowledgement or response, but Fjord still has no idea what he’s looking for from him.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” he answers honestly. “Is there a treatment?”

“I hope so,” Caduceus says. “I hope so, very much. But it’s nothing you need to worry about. I just overexerted myself, that’s all. I haven’t channeled the Wildmother’s power like that in a long time.”

“What does that mean? You ‘channeled her power’?” Now that Caduceus doesn’t look in danger of fainting at any moment, the burning desire to understand what just happened returns to Fjord’s mind. 

“What do you know about the Wildmother?” Caduceus asks, a question for a question, and just like at the tavern, Fjord finds himself adrift once more, drowning amidst all the information he seems to have missed in his childhood. 

“Nothing, really.” Fjord rubs the back of his neck. “Hadn’t even heard of her until Nila mentioned the name.”

“Who is this ‘Nila’? She sounds like a lovely woman.”

“Oh,” Fjord hedges, nervous to reveal too much about the circumstances of his coming to Savalir. “I was… injured, when I entered the Savalirwood. Her husband found me, and she… cured my wounds? She was… she was like you,” he says, unsure how to phrase the sentiment without causing offense. “Um. Tall?” He taps his nose, then points to Caduceus’s flatter one, and shrugs helplessly.

Caduceus’s understanding smile is warm, and unaffected. “A firbolg?”

“That’s another word I don’t know. But yes, I think so.”

“Many firbolgs follow the Wildmother. She guards over nature, as do we.”

“She’s a goddess then?” He knows that the people of the Menagerie Coast worship different gods and goddesses, and that there are shrines to a number of deities within Port Damali, but since none of the other sailors were a religious lot, he’s never visited any of them.

“In a manner of speaking. She exists, and has power beyond what we can do ourselves, that she shares with her closest followers. If that makes her a goddess, then yes, she is. What I believe is that she is the guardian of Savalir, and the wood that surrounds us, and that is sufficient for me.” 

Fjord thinks of the rot along the border, the dying trees and the spreading infection that Nila feared. “Does she… she knows that the wood is dying, right?” He cringes, worried again that he might offend Caduceus by questioning his beliefs.

Caduceus pauses before replying, and when he does speak, his words are less than sure. “Some people think that her power is leaving us, because of what’s happening to the Savalirwood.”

“But you don’t believe that?”

“I- I’m not sure what to believe, anymore. It’s been a very long time since I’ve been certain about anything.” His words are almost inaudible, and Caduceus’s eyes fly open the moment they leave his mouth, a panicked gaze of one who’s said more than they meant to. Fjord tries to sooth his worry with a gentle hand on his knee. “I’m sorry,” Caduceus says quickly. “I… haven’t said that aloud, before.”

“It’s alright. I don’t mind, trust me. Never been a man of faith myself, but I’m trying to understand.”

“I don’t think the Wildmother’s power is fading, or that she’s left us. I can’t believe that’s true, because I can still feel her when I reach out. But something isn’t right.” Caduceus shakes his head. “Something isn’t right, and I’m not… I have never been sure how to fix it.”

“That’s a bit above us, isn’t it?” Fjord laughs, mostly to bear out the anxiety from being unable to help. He has no idea what kind of comfort to offer on a scale as abstract as a goddess’s unknowable will. “I mean, we’re just servants - employees, whatever we are. Satisfying a divine patron’s whims seems like something that monarchs and leaders have to worry about, not people like us.”

Caduceus laughs too, equally as reluctant to meet Fjord’s eyes. “The Wildmother doesn’t care about the station of her followers. We’re all equal to her. We all bear the same responsibility, regardless of what I... who we are.”

“I don’t think you have to bear the weight of saving an entire wood on your shoulders, Caduceus. That’s way too much for one person.” Even thinking about it is overwhelming, and Fjord feels his eyes crossing at the sheer magnitude of that kind of duty, but Caduceus only smiles, inscrutable as always. 

“How is your hand feeling?” Fjord turns his attention back to the wound. The throbbing is almost completely gone, and he flexes his fingers one last time, happy to find no obvious mobility issues.

“Much better. Thank you again. Even though I still don’t totally understand what you did… thank you.”

“I’m always happy to be able to help.”

“I’ll try not to make needing help a habit.”

“I wouldn’t mind,” Caduceus says, and Fjord lets out a startled chuckle at the sincerity of his words. 

“Well, let’s try to keep it to one injury a week, then. And _you,”_ he says, poking a finger into Caduceus’s bony arm, “need to try to eat more, so you have enough energy to heal me the next time I get myself hurt.”

“I think we have a deal.” Caduceus sits back, pleased, and Fjord can’t keep the grin off his face. The day goes on, and it keeps creeping back, as he and Caduceus collect themselves and get back to their task - as they share a drink at the hottest apex of noon - as they finish the last of the measurements and Fjord heads off to the woodshed with the basket of glass over his shoulder. There are still more shards hidden within the brush, he’s sure of it, but so much progress has been made already. Fjords feels hopeful that everything will be set right soon, as long as he keeps on working hard.

And work hard, he does. Every day he returns to the greenhouse, and not all days, but some days, Caduceus is there waiting for him. Fjord starts to pack enough food for two, even when he doesn’t know if he’ll have someone to share it with. But when he does, they eat beneath the shade of the Wildmother’s statue, and Caduceus tells him the kind of stories Fjord has been hungry for all his life - of islands beyond the sea with shores of glittering jewels, of a forge that burns ever-bright in the darkness, of a beloved younger sister, with frogs in her pockets and curls in her hair. 

Some days Caduceus looks sad and far, far away. It hurts Fjord’s heart to see it: the way he purses his lips when he thinks Fjord isn’t looking, like there’s something pressed behind them, desperate to be set free. Every time, he opens his mouth, only for no words to come out in the end. But his face is always bright when he turns back to Fjord, and Fjord swiftly finds that he’ll do just about anything to bring a smile to Caduceus’s weary face.

It’s not that he’s forgotten Sabian, he reassures himself each night, nestled within the soft comfort of pillows and sheets. It’s still his first priority. But there’s no need to do anything hasty. The wedding is still weeks away, and he has plenty of time: time to go to the tavern with Jester and Beau; to eat hot pastries for breakfast, and to share the leftovers with Caduceus at lunch; to visit the market and bring fresh strawberries home; to check in with Caleb and drink tea together while Frumpkin meows piteously from behind a closed door. 

He has time to watch for yellow eyes at the window next to his, and wonder if he should knock one day - extend the hand that hasn’t yet been extended to him. He’s seen Caleb dipping in and out of the cabin every so often, and even caught a glimpse of a tiny figure wrapped in a black cloak, leading a child by the hand towards the castle, when he was late for work one day. Maybe this mysterious stranger would welcome a visitor, if they spend so much time cooped up indoors. It’s worth a shot, at least.

The drive for revenge seems less pressing, the farther Vandran’s death fades into the past, and the more he considers how ill-conceived his original plan of killing Sabian really was. Fjord isn’t a fighter. He can’t walk into Sabian’s quarters and overpower him. And he still doesn’t have any political clout to shift the tides - that hasn’t changed, and it never will. 

But things are alright, for now. Fjord still has time, time that seems to lose all meaning when he’s in the greenhouse, Caduceus at his side, fitting together panes of glass like shells along the seashore. One by one, the weeks go by, and the new windows slot into place, and the sun shines brighter, and warmer, and longer into the evening. And for the second time in his life, Fjord is _happy._ He wonders less and less often how he’s meant to avenge his mentor’s death, and more and more, if punishing Sabian is really worth an end to all this light.

And the days go on, and on, and so does the world, and the date of the wedding grows closer and closer still. But Fjord’s heart grows mostly inwards: towards the garden he and Caduceus are building together, piece by careful piece.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welp, I already had to amend my chapter count from 15 to 16. 


	12. Adnate (The Sanctuary)

“So, guess what?” 

“What?” 

Fjord looks up at Beau, whose time is ever-so-helpfully occupied by chewing on a blade of grass as she lounges against the pasture fence, while he hammers new boards into place a few posts down. 

After so many repairs, he’s starting to recognize the signatures of different sorts of breaks in the wood. A clean split means Beau has been practicing her low kick. A more jagged crack, her cross. A splintered post is the result of a badly aimed vault, by way of gooseherd’s crook. Thankfully, for both the fence’s and her sake, the sturdier tree near the gate seems to have taken the worst of her headbutts. 

The proof of Beau’s efforts is evident in her toned muscles, but more so in the number of times Caleb has asked Fjord to come fix the fence in the past few weeks. If Beau were actually his shipmate, she’d have probably earned a reprimand by now. You don’t break things, not intentionally, when the nearest port is twenty leagues off course. Still, Fjord doesn’t mind the chance to catch up with a more sober version of his friend, and it’s always an easy repair, now he knows the dimensions of each slat and bolt by heart. The simple work leaves plenty of time for idle gossip, before the sun gets too high and they’re both forced to retreat to shadier surroundings.

“Caleb got a messenger jay from Yasha this morning. She’s finally heading back.” Though her face reveals only a practiced sort of aloof indifference, he knows her well enough to recognize the relief beneath.

“That’s great,” he says, laying down one last mallet strike before wandering over to Beau’s side and joining her on the ground. The day is proving to be the hottest day of summer so far, and he relishes what meagre shadow the fence provides. As torrents of sweat trickle down his back, he finds himself increasingly jealous of Beau’s sparse clothing, but Fjord doubts he’d be any more comfortable clad in revealing linen wraps than he is in his long sleeves.

“Yeah. I don’t think Caleb expected her to be gone so long. Her assignment must have been trickier than he thought.” Beau spits the spent blade of grass onto the ground by Fjord’s feet, then replaces it with a fresh piece. 

“Do you know what she was doing?”

“Nah. Caleb’s been real hush-hush about it - sneaky bastard. But I guess he’s allowed to have his secrets.” The scowl on Beau’s face proclaims exactly how well she likes _that_ sentiment. “Maybe he sent her to the coast to pick up a super secret wedding gift, or decorations, or something. I’m just glad she’s going to be back in time _for_ the wedding. She’s cutting it close as it is.”

Fjord stiffens. “Ah, right. The wedding. When is that again?” he asks, as casual as he can manage amid the tightening in his chest. Beau glances at him, incredulous.

“Seriously, Fjord? That’s all anyone in the castle’s been talking about for weeks. Did you really forget?”

“Haven’t spent much time in the castle lately,” he offers weakly, and Beau snorts and shakes her head.

“You work too much. That garden can wait long enough for you to check in with Jester now and then.”

“I _am_ being serious, Beau. When is it?”

Beau sighs, rolling her eyes, but caves to his pleading look. “It’s on Yulisen, so… six days from now?”

Fjord slumps back against the fence, the wet shirt that clings to his shoulders prickling, as salt soaked fabric presses into his back.

_Six days._ How had he let it creep up on him like that? It feels like only yesterday he still had weeks to spare.

“You alright, man?”

“Yeah,” says Fjord. “Yeah, I’m good.” He tugs down his hat and pushes himself to his feet. “Just… really hot out here. I think I’ll head to the greenhouse, cool off for a bit.” 

Fjord stumbles back towards the centre of the grounds, Beau calling a confused goodbye at his back. 

Six days till the wedding. Then Sabian will be prince of two countries, and twice as untouchable. 

Fjord tugs nervous fingers through the damp hair that tumbles out from below the hat’s brim - longer now than it’s ever been, for he hasn’t cut it since coming to Savalir. His beard is growing out too, into wiry black bristles that needle at his taut mouth. When he first forwent the razor, he’d thought only of what a good disguise it would be. Now the beard’s length serves as further proof of the passage of time: of all the weeks he’s sat around, doing nothing to accomplish his goal.

...But what _is_ his goal, exactly?

He came to Savalir with the intent to kill Sabian. He was very clear on that point when he awoke by the ocean. He was nearly mad with determination to make it true, as he crawled into the clearing where Kitor found him. But he’s become less sure of that intention by the day, and even now, as he tries to imagine the inevitable end to all this, he can’t make the vision hold. 

Can he see himself standing over Sabian’s body, with a blade clutched in his bloody hands? Jester’s hands over her mouth? Beau’s eyes wide with horror and disbelief? Caleb’s good opinion turned cold and vengeful? And Caduceus… Caduceus, who rescues even insects from being trodden underfoot, who tends to the ugly plants along with the beautiful, who finds meaning in all life and death alike - what would he think of Fjord, in the throws of cold-blooded murder?

What explanation could Fjord give, that would be believed?

It was easier to think of revenge when it was only himself, hunched and alone in the tableau of his life. He’d had no hope for the future with Vandran gone, for he’d had no hope before he met him, and had not thought to wish for better since. But here in the strange land of Savalir, there are people he calls friends. There’s gold in a pouch beneath his shirt, and a soft bed to sleep in, and a promise this can all be his, for as long as he wants it. 

And there’s a man, who hands him nails and shares his bread. Who teaches Fjord about flowers and a Mother’s love, who is eager to be taught in turn, and Fjord wants…

He doesn’t know what he wants, anymore.

Caduceus isn’t supposed to be in the greenhouse today. He said he had a busy week, and not to expect him unless he could steal away. But when Fjord walks through the door, there he is - standing tall and resplendent in the unbroken light from the windows above, and Fjord thinks, for the first time in his life, that he believes in signs.

He isn’t ready to give this up. Not for Vandran’s sake, not even for justice’s sake. The world can have Sabian: alive or dead, prince of one dynasty or two. Fjord has Caduceus, and a garden to finish. That’s more than enough for him.

“Hello! Didn’t expect you today,” he calls, a bright smile splitting his face as he walks up. Every time he sees Caduceus, he finds his heart rising, and with the newfound lightness of having finally made a decision, the organ is ready to burst from his mouth. All he can do is smile, because he knows at last that it doesn’t have to end. 

The wedding will go on, as it always would have, and he will still have _this._

But when Caduceus turns, his eyes are less joyful than Fjord’s. The heavy bags beneath them speak of sleepless nights and longer days, and he sways slowly on his feet, staring at Fjord with an unreadable expression. 

“Hello,” he murmurs back, the words perfunctory, with no energy behind them. Then Caduceus takes a deep breath, squeezing his eyes closed, and when he opens them the gentle smile Fjord had been expecting is there again. “How have you been?”

“Better, since you’re here,” Fjord answers, but his smile is fading fast. He runs his eyes down Caduceus’s body, searching for any other signs of illness beyond the evident exhaustion. He can’t imagine any disease being bettered by time in such oppressive heat, and the air of the greenhouse is thick with moisture - a soup of condensation and muddy earth that clings to the throat and lungs with every breath. “But are you sure you’re up to working today? If you’re not feeling well, you should take the day off. It’s truly, _so_ hot.”

“I’m not sick, Fjord… not today, at least. Any bad way I’m in is of my own doing, I’m afraid.” Fjord frowns, accustomed to Caduceus’s cryptic non-answers, but still concerned by the weariness that pervades even his low voice. Still, none of the other typical signs - trembling hands, weakness in the legs - are present in Caduceus’s posture, and so he’s forced to take him at his word. 

He just looks… _tired._ And while there isn’t much he can do about that, Fjord means to do _something_ to make his day a little easier, at least.

Fjord reaches below his chin and undoes the tie of his hat, then plucks it off and places the wide straw brim over Caduceus’s head. Caduceus’s eyes shoot up to his hairline, staring in bemusement at the new adornment. 

“This is yours,” he states, touching his fingers hesitantly to the brim. 

“It’s hot,” Fjord offers by way of explanation.

“You bought it,” Caduceus insists, and starts to lift the hat off. Fjord reaches up on his tiptoes and pushes the hat back down. 

“And now I’m giving it to you.”

“I could buy my own. I can’t accept-”

“You _can,”_ Fjord says forcefully. “I want you to. I’m used to being out in the sun all day, and besides, my skin’s made for it. Not to point out the obvious, but you’re about the palest person I’ve ever met.” Caduceus tries to protest again, and Fjord holds up a hand. “It’ll make me feel better, to know that you have a bit of protection. So wear it, for me?”

At last, Caduceus relents. He reaches up and tugs the hat down, adjusting the brim until it sits squarely over his forehead, tucking a few errant strands of hair behind his ear in the process. The line of shade does nothing to dull the shimmer of pink and silver across his brow.

“How do I look?”

_Handsome._

Fjord swallows around the unbidden word - unfamiliar with its voicing, even if it feels like the right one.

“Looks good,” he says instead, watching Caduceus’s long fingers fiddle with the same cord his own fingers have touched a hundred times, until it becomes a bow beneath his chin. A warmth of a different kind settles in his chest, something deeper than the burn of the sun. It comes from Caduceus, wearing _his_ hat, and how much Fjord hopes he’ll keep it longer than the day. 

He doesn’t have a way to describe what else he hopes for. It’s the sort of story that’s never applied to him, and so he puts the thought away, and focuses on what he does know: his work. Fjord turns to search for the tools he’d left the day before - sometimes he swears the greenhouse is playing tricks on him, for they never seem to end up where he thought he put them - and as he walks away, Caduceus speaks up again.

“I need to tell you something, Fjord.”

“Yeah?” he calls without looking back. Ah, _there_ they are. He plucks the saw and measuring string from beneath a raspberry bush, grinning triumphantly. If this is a game, he’s won the first round.

“It’s something I… I really should have told you when we met.” Fjord looks over his shoulder. Caduceus’s momentary happiness at the gift of the hat has vanished, replaced with weariness once more. He’s not looking at Fjord either, which is strange. He’s used to the opposite from Caduceus - more accustomed to too-long gazes, that leave Fjord the one to look away. 

“I’m sure it’s fine,” he says slowly. “What-”

Another sound cuts between the rustling leaves, cleaving whatever Caduceus’s answer might have been: a voice more lofty than Caduceus’s drawl, but no less recognizable. It drifts through the half-ajar door on the sticky breeze, sending chills through Fjord’s chest as the familiar accent plunges into him, as sharp as any blade.

“This must be it.”

_Sabian._

“We have to hide,” he hisses, grabbing Caduceus by the elbow and dragging him towards the rear of the greenhouse. He expects a protest, at least a _question,_ but Caduceus’s eyes are as wide as his, and he lets Fjord lead him through the maze of boughs and vines without another words.

If only they’d done a worse job over the last few weeks… but steady light now streams in through the replaced windows, illuminating what once was only shade. With Caduceus’s careful pruning, the plants aren’t so great an obstacle as they once were. The only spot left that’s truly wild is the area near the Wildmother’s statue, and Fjord pulls Caduceus into her shadow, pressing him back into the wall and pulling the lichen in around them like a funeral shroud. He holds a finger to his lips, and Caduceus’s ears twitch at the creak of the opening door. Through the gaps between leaves, Fjord spies the shadow of two figures stepping into the greenhouse - two invaders, in the holy sanctum he and Caduceus worked so hard to create.

Nausea churns in Fjord’s stomach, and though Caduceus is already pressed flat to the wall, he presses harder still, and tugs him down until their noses are nearly touching. It’s not rational - Fjord is the one who’s in danger from Sabian, not some gardener the prince has likely never met. But there’s a protective spirit within him that’s desperate to keep Caduceus out of sight, as fruitless as it is to try and hide one so large with his smaller body. The conviction is as powerful as it is foolhardy: never again will someone he cares for take the sword meant for him.

Sabian’s voice comes a second time - louder now, without any wall to separate Fjord from his would-be murderer. 

“So this is the place...” A scuffling sound, like someone kicking at the dirt with their boot. “Not much to look at, eh?” His companion makes a grunt of agreement, and Sabian laughs coldly. “Why anyone would leave a castle so beautiful to spend their time in a hovel like this, I’ll never understand.”

The ground crunches beneath two sets of heavy footsteps, and Fjord cringes closer to the wall, a heavy heartbeat thudding within his chest. It might be his, or Caduceus’s. They’re so close now, it’s impossible to tell the two apart. Hot, quickened breath ghosts over his chin, and Fjord presses his forehead to Caduceus’s wide brow, begging him to be silent without words. 

“I know I certainly won’t. Once I’m king, I’ll have the building repurposed - into a workshop, perhaps. At the very least, we should plant some functional crops here. All of this-” the sound of bending branches, “-is just for show.”

“If it’s for show, it’s a poor one,” says the other man, and Sabian laughs again. Fjord recognizes the voice as belonging to one of Sabian’s guards. The man in question often consulted with Fjord about watch shifts aboard the _Tide’s Breath,_ up until the night he took Fjord by the arm and tossed him into the raging waves. 

He’s going to be sick. 

The footsteps pause just feet from where they are, close enough that Fjord can make out the colours of Sabian’s royal garb through the brush: still clad in blues and greens, like he was when they were children. The colours of the very sea that Sabian stole from him. Anger rises amidst the fear, and he clenches his teeth, as the hairs on his neck bristle with barely-contained rage.

And then there are hands covering his arms, soothing them down with trembling care. Fjord forces his eyes closed, and leans into Caduceus, feeling their shared breath fill his empty lungs, until the sensation of drowning fades.

“And this must be the oh-so-important statue.”

“Who is she?” asks the guard.

“The Wildmother.” Nothing about the way Sabian says the words, so disdainful and unfeeling, conveys any of the warmth and protection Fjord associates with her name. “I’ll never be able to forget it, the way he prattles on about her day and night. I think some days I’ll go mad from having to sit there and listen politely. It’s all I can do not to roll my eyes.”

“You don’t believe the tales, then?”

“What, about her protecting this land, with all her mysterious tribal magic?” Sabian scoffs. “My darling betrothed can believe whatever he wants, but we left all that nonsense behind in Port Damali generations ago. Still, superstition is what got me here, and I think it’s in my best interests to give every appearance of indulgence, for now. I’d like to postpone the nagging until at least our second year of domestic bliss. And besides, a happy husband makes for a happier marriage bed, wouldn’t you agree?” The guard snickers, and Caduceus’s hands tighten around Fjord’s arms. 

Though he doesn’t know the prince of Savalir, the callousness of Sabian’s attitude towards his absent fiance still pricks at Fjord’s heart. He can’t imagine what Caduceus, who’s worked at the castle for a long time, and likely knows the prince well, must be thinking.

“I suppose we’ve seen everything there is to see. I’d thought-” Sabian abruptly pauses, and for one heartstopping moment Fjord is sure they’ve been caught. But Sabian finishes the thought with barely a hesitation, “-well, I suppose it doesn’t matter much what I thought. I’ve seen quite enough for one day.” The footsteps turn away, and for the first time since Sabian entered, Fjord lets his shoulders drop. “My _dear_ husband-to-be said he would be back from his meeting soon. It wouldn’t do to keep him waiting.”

The door closes with a bang behind Sabian, and only after the echo of his voice fades does Fjord feel safe to step back from Caduceus. The leaves ripple around them, drifting apart, as though to give them room to breath now the danger has passed. Fjord has the sudden suspicion that the branches in their vicinity hadn’t been quite so close together the day before. 

In the wake of Sabian’s passing, a new terror replaces the fear of discovery. How will he explain his behaviour to Caduceus? What lie would be acceptable, for hiding from a future monarch instead of greeting him with the proper respect? 

But when he finally gains the courage to look up into Caduceus’s face, any thoughts of falsehoods fly from his mind.

The man looks _harrowed -_ a ghostly wanness paling his skin and an emptiness dulling his eyes, as though a spirit had stolen the life from his body while Fjord wasn’t watching. He sags against the wall, unmoved from where Fjord’s hands had pushed him. As he draws back, Caduceus sinks to the ground, staring at the nothingness before him with an utterly absent expression.

If this is the sickness returned, it’s the worst bout Fjord’s ever seen. He falls to his knees in front of Caduceus, tilting back the hat to see his face more clearly. The blankness he finds is as terrifying as Sabian’s presence, and he gently shakes Caduceus’s shoulders, trying to rouse him.

“Can you hear me? Caduceus, are you alright?”

Caduceus twitches at the sound of Fjord’s voice, and he cringes as well. It feels all too loud amidst the terrible silence of the minutes before. But then Caduceus blinks slowly, and at last, his eyes raise up to meet Fjord’s.

“Yes,” he says quietly. “I’m alright.” 

It’s a lie, as plain as any Fjord’s ever told, but he doesn’t argue. Instead, he says, “Come on. Let’s get you some air.”

Fjord puts his arm below Caduceus and hoists him onto his shoulder. Caduceus goes willingly, sagging into the partial embrace without protest. Despite his stature, he’s sparrow-light in Fjord’s arms, the bones of his ribcage shifting beneath his hands. _Too thin,_ Fjord worries again as he lays him down against the base of the statue.

“Let me get you some water-” Fjord starts to say, but Caduceus’s hand lurches out and grabs him by the wrist.

“Don’t go,” he rasps, near to pleading, and Fjord is helpless to move.

“Ok,” he says instead, and sits down across from Caduceus. 

The rational part of him is still terrified that Sabian will come walking through the door again. It knows the safest thing to do would be to run back to his cabin, and hide there until the danger is past. But in his heart, he can’t bear to leave Caduceus here alone. 

The childish part of him doesn’t want to be alone either.

They sit in the dirt together for what must be minutes, but feels like hours, until at last Caduceus’s grip on Fjord’s wrist slackens. “I haven’t had a spell like that in a long time,” he murmurs. “I’m sorry if I worried you.” A little more colour dots his cheeks now, to Fjord’s relief. He takes the retreating hand and squeezes it reassuringly. 

“Just glad you’re back with me.” Caduceus’s fingers tense as he gazes down at their entwined hands. Fjord can’t read his expression beneath the wide brim of the hat, but it seems a decision is made, because a moment later he feels a gentle squeeze back. 

“I can’t stay long.”

Fjord shakes his head. “You need to rest for a while. You’re in no fit state to be walking anywhere.” To prove the point, he lifts Caduceus’s arm a few inches, till they can both feel how unsteady the muscles are - as soft and wobbling as Jester’s strawberry jam. “Just… stay a little bit longer.”

“I should say no.” The hat shudders as he says more softly, almost to himself, “But I don’t want to.”

“Then don’t,” Fjord says. “Stay with me.” 

_Let me take care of you._

The phrase is nothing more than a whisper of a thought, and Fjord pushes it to the side as one more unhelpful distraction.

“Do you… do you want to hear another tale of the Wildmother?” Caduceus’s question - so hesitant, as though he expects Fjord to refuse - catches him off-guard, but Fjord’s answer is the same as it ever was.

“Always. I’ve loved every story you’ve told me.”

And it’s true. Even the darkest tales come to life in Caduceus’s voice, in his low murmurings of strange and haunting sights, his steady assurance of beauty in even the oldest and gloomiest places. But most of all, it’s the joy he sees in the telling that Fjord loves. Anything Caduceus wants to share, he is hungry to share with him.

So Caduceus begins another story, and Fjord lets the worry drift away for one more hour, where they can both pretend their hidden world is the only one that matters.

But the illusion can’t last forever. Before he reaches the end of the tale, Caduceus begins to cough, a wracking noise that tears from his lungs, and Fjord is forced to leave him for a few moments to fetch the water after all. As he watches Caduceus drink deeply from the skin, Fjord can’t help trying one more time to reach him.

“I know you love this garden. But why do you keep on working, when you’re this sick? Wouldn’t it be better to rest for a while?”

“Responsibilities don’t go away just because you feel a little tired,” Caduceus says dismissively, and Fjord rebuts, with more confidence on the matter than he could have mustered a month ago, 

“Caleb wouldn’t begrudge you for taking time off, I’m sure of it. You could just-”

“I can’t, Fjord.” His flippant tone turns hard at the edge, but Fjord can’t bring himself to back down.

“Why not?”

“Because there needs to be _something_ for them to come back to.”

Fjord halts, abruptly perplexed, as Caduceus turns his face away from Fjord again. “Who?”

“...My family.”

“What do you mean?”

He knows Caduceus had a family, at some point. He’s heard him speak of his younger sister, and of his parents with fondness, but he’d assumed from the bittersweetness of Caduceus’s description that he’d lost them a long time ago - that he was an orphan, just like Fjord. 

“They sacrificed so much to protect our home. They _left,_ to protect our home. If everything is gone by the time they come back, then it was all for nothing.”

Fjord doesn’t understand what it is that Caduceus is worried about losing. His salary? A family residence? “Caleb wouldn’t stop paying you, I’m sure-” he starts, but Caduceus only shakes his head.

“This is what I need to do, Fjord.”

_I could take care of you._

The phrase comes again, shimmering around an idea, a notion he can’t yet describe. All he knows with certainty is that this is _wrong -_ this sadness on Caduceus’s face, this resignation in his voice. Things can be _better,_ he knows that now, and not just for him. Nobody should have to live with that much despair.

But the more he presses, the more Caduceus closes off, and Fjord thinks it might be better to leave the conversation alone for today. They’re both exhausted, for different reasons, and he’s afraid of saying something that will end the discussion forever. 

Still, there’s one last unfinished thread hovering at the back of his mind.

“You said you had something you needed to tell me,” Fjord reminds Caduceus.

“Hmm?”

“Before. There was something you needed to tell me.”

Caduceus waits for a long moment before answering. “Another day. Tomorrow.” He nods his head, resolved. “I’ll tell you tomorrow. Just… let me have one more day.”

“...Alright. Another day.” And feeling that he’s pushed the matter enough, Fjord acquiesces. “Do you feel well enough to head back?”

“I think so.” Caduceus tests his legs, and finding them steady at last, they make their way out of the greenhouse. Fjord has every intention of walking him all the way back to whatever cabin is his, but Caduceus bids him goodbye near the dining hall, saying he wants to take a stroll before the light is fully gone. Without any defensible reason to stop him, Fjord lets him go.

Despite the heat of the day, the air is chilly in the gathering dusk, and the sweat that soaked his shirt now cools into a cold compress against Fjord’s back. He shivers, wrapping his arms around himself as he heads back to his own cabin. Now that immediate concern for Caduceus is past, his mind returns again to the encounter with Sabian. Today was far too close a call, and Fjord realizes now how lucky he’s been that it’s taken so long for something like this to happen. It’s a big castle, but the grounds aren’t infinite, and no bearded disguise would have saved him had Sabian spotted him through the leaves. Even if he’s resolved to stay, something needs to change.

Lost in thought, he’s barely paying attention to the path, so there’s no warning when something short and fabric-wrapped collides with his lower half. Startled, he looks down into wide yellow eyes, nearly hidden beneath a thick layer of bandages. The eyes swiftly narrow back to slits, but their yellow sheen can’t be hidden entirely, nor the green tinge along her nose, or the glint of needled teeth poking out between thin lips.

A goblin.

His mysterious neighbour is a _goblin._

“...Ah, hel-”

A child’s face appears in the open door, beside his own. “Mommy! Can I have sweets now?”

“Give me a minute, Luc!” The goblin’s voice is high and shrill, but still marked by affection, and when she turns back to Fjord, he finds the spell of suspicion broken by the child’s entrance.

“Well, I’m not having this conversation outside. I guess you’d better come in.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please take a second and look at the amazing [art](https://c-kiddo.tumblr.com/post/624044075521392640/c-kiddo-sometimes-you-decide-to-draw-a-scene) c-kiddo did for this chapter!


	13. Convergence (The Cabin)

The boy is waiting for them just inside the door when they step inside, bright smile dappling his face of ruddy brown and dark curls. He looks up at the goblin woman with round, expectant eyes, while she shoos him along and shuts the door behind them. 

“Mommy, you promised-”

“Here you go, Luc.” From her long sleeve, she produces something small and wrapped in wax paper. Luc snatches it eagerly from her hands and pops it in his mouth. “Now go play for a bit, ok? Mommy’s got to have a word with our new  _ friend _ here.” She squints her eyes meaningfully on the word  _ friend,  _ staring at Fjord _.  _ The suspicion, now returned, should sting more - and it  _ does  _ sting. He’s grown accustomed to being treated as a friendly face in Savalir, and it hurts to be reminded of far less charitable treatment in the past.

It’s only… he’s never actually met a _goblin_ before. He wasn’t aware that anyone _met_ a goblin. They were the villains in the bloody stories Sabian used to love, cast as sharp-toothed killers as often as wolves, and equally like to gobble children up. It’s hard to resent her wariness, when his own chest is tightening around the same nervous instinct.

Still sucking on his treat, the boy nods happily, then waves goodbye to Fjord with sugar-stained fingers before racing into the other room. Well fed and clothed, Luc certainly doesn’t seem in imminent danger from the woman at his side, and Fjord shakes his head, feeling foolish for letting childish fears override the truth of his own eyes. Of course, those were only stories, and Sabian’s tales lied about so many things - magical beasts, grand mysteries, happy endings for brave orphan boys - so why should goblins be any different?

The woman’s cabin is bigger than his own, with a wall separating a bedroom from the living space where the two of them now stand awkwardly eying each other, from vastly disparate heights. The furniture is sparse but practical, the room adorned with a few shiny knick-knacks but little else. The only notable feature of the space is a long table, laid over with bubbling vials and titration tubes. Concoctions of all hues flow through the complicated system, each emitting a slightly different - but equally foul - scent. Notes of burnt eggs, bat excrement, and sulfur waft throughout the cabin, and Fjord stifles a cough in his shoulder, not wanting to be rude.

“Have a seat,” the woman orders, more than offers, and he makes for the couch that’s farthest from the stinking burners. As he sits, something sharp jabs into his backside. Fjord winces as he feels beneath him and draws out the source of the prick. In his hand lies what looks to be a crossbow bolt, but in miniature, as though made for a child’s hand. The woman swipes it from him as she passes by, then pulls up a chair opposite him and straddles it, chin perched on her folded arms as she peers over the back at Fjord.

“I tell him not to leave his toys lying around, but you know how boys are at his age.”

With Luc absent to hear the admonishment, it lacks any sort of bite. Her scolding is less annoyed, and more eye-rollingly affectionate. He wonders at giving a child any sort of crossbow as a toy - the bolt, though small, certainly would have punctured his skin had Fjord sat down less hesitantly - but having never cared for a child himself, he supposes he’s not in a position to judge her decisions.

“Luc… he’s your son?” Fjord doesn’t mean anything in particular by the question, other than to clarify the situation. He’s plenty versed with the concept of adoption - remembers talk of the few lucky orphans from the Driftwood Asylum each year who found new families with generous souls within the city, and those less lucky, who got snatched up by gruff farmers needing an extra set of hands to work the field. It wouldn’t surprise him greatly to discover something similar here.

But the atmosphere of the room changes as soon as the question leaves his mouth. The woman’s hands tighten across the chair back, claws digging into the soft wood as the floor creaks beneath her.

“Yes,” she says. Her eyes are suddenly dark, a violent storm deepening their yellow glow. Their look dares Fjord to contradict her, and suffer the consequences. “He is.”

Fjord swallows. “Ok.” His eyes drift off to the corner, letting her win the challenge of stares. “Of course.” He’s not keen to antagonize the woman, especially not under the same roof where her child sleeps. A vision of his old nurse, her hands clutching Sabian tight, flashes behind his eyes. He hasn’t known a mother who wouldn’t sacrifice everything to protect their child. “I’m Fjord, by the way. Sorry I haven’t introduced myself before, I just…”

_ Wasn’t sure if you were in? Wasn’t sure if you wanted company? Wasn’t sure if I would be welcome? _

Voice taut as a bowstring’s curve, she speaks a single word over his trailing voice. “Nott.”

“Not?”

“...My name is Nott.”

“Ah. ...Nice to meet you, Nott.”

Her eyes narrow further, gazing straight through his polite words to the apprehension that still lingers beneath. 

“You moved in a month ago. Why?”

With pleasantries apparently over, Fjord’s posture shifts to suit the newly begun interrogation.

“I work here.”

“Who told you we needed more people?” The tenor of her voice tells Fjord she likely has a different opinion on the matter.

“Jester. I met her in the marketplace, and she offered me a job.” The tension loosens by a hair, but Fjord isn’t foolish enough to believe he’s out of the woods yet.

“And who gave you this job?”

“The groundsmaster, Caleb.”

“Why,” Nott sneers, her nails on the back of the chair tapping an ominous, keeling rhythm, “would someone as smart as Caleb hire a perfect stranger off the street?”

It’s a question he’s been asking himself for weeks. He’s still not sure he believes the answer he was given, but it’s the best he can offer.

“Yasha said he had a good feeling about me.”

Nott sits back, and Fjord breathes out as the tension releases. The bowstring goes slack as he gives what was, apparently, the correct response. 

“Then you must be alright. Caleb always knows about people.”

Considering someone as awful as Sabian is within the castle, still set to marry the ruler of Savalir and not headed home to Port Damali on the next merchant ship, Fjord can’t believe that’s entirely true. But that’s not something he can say without raising dangerous questions, so he simply nods along.

“I guess so.”

“So you’re not going to do anything, then?”

“Like what?”

“Go running to Caleb and tell him you won’t live next to a dirty goblin? Pull out a pitchfork? Try to ‘rescue’ my son from his abductor?”

“No? Why would I-”

Nott scoffs and turns away. “Just asking.”

Fjord sits forward, understanding flooding through his mind even as Nott withdraws. The bandages wrapped around her face are starting to make far more sense. “Trust me, I’m the last person who would do any of that.” He pulls up his lip, revealing one of his pointed tusks. “Pretty sure people don’t usually like the look of me either.”

Not that there’s much of Nott to be seen. With her hood up, barely a speck of green peeks through. If she keeps her mouth shut, no one can see the teeth pressing between her gums. Fjord can’t help but think about how he learned to smile closed-mouthed as a child. It’s only in the last year or so he’s started letting his grins fall open, without the compulsive need to cover his mouth with the back of his hand. 

He bares his teeth into the widest grin he can muster, and after a moment, Nott turns back to him, her mouth cautiously quirking too. 

“Thought orcs were supposed to be big and scary.” 

Though he thinks she means it in jest, the comment still needles, and Fjord jabs back, “Thought goblins were supposed to eat people.” 

Nott finally bares her own teeth, grinning, with a vicious sort of mischief in her eyes.

“How do you know we don’t?”

“Guess I’m just going to have to trust in your hospitality.”

“Guess so.”

Fjord snorts and sits back at last. The tension fully broken, he finds himself liking this new neighbour of his. He gets the feeling they wouldn’t always get along, but it’s refreshing to have a verbal sparring partner. Secure enough now in his relationships with Beau and Jester to not fear ostracization within the castle, he doesn’t need to treat this new addition to his social circle with kid gloves. She can think what she wants of him, but he hopes she ends up liking him, in the end. 

And maybe… maybe there’s something comforting in seeing someone in Savalir more alien than him, who’s still accepted into the castle. It gives Fjord hope that his own hiring wasn’t just an anomaly. Maybe this really is a place where all are welcome, regardless of what they look like, or who their parents are, or were. 

“So, how’d you end up here?” 

Every person in the castle so far has had a more outlandish origin than the last. Fjord can’t wait to discover where a goblin fits into the tangled weave of personal histories.

“Me? I came with Caleb.”

“Really?” Fjord says, more intrigued than before. That seems an odd couple, though he supposes he doesn’t know Caleb  _ that _ well. It seems there are layers yet beneath the surface to be uncovered.

“He… we come from the same country. We met when I was taking Luc… we both needed to get to safety. It was easier together.”

Caleb’s danger, he knows of, but what of Nott’s? It’s hard to imagine Nott embroiled in the same political intrigue as Caleb - her rural roughness shines through in every aspect of her being, from her posture to her accent to the dirt beneath her nails. 

“What kind of danger were you in?” he presses, and Nott glares at him with a very familiar look: the kind people give Fjord when it takes him twice as long as it should to read through a simple document, or to parse a complicated instruction in his head.

“I was a goblin carrying a halfling son,” she snaps. “What do  _ you _ think people thought about that? Do you think they said, ‘Oh, what a sweet pair! We should give them some food, to help them on their journey’?” Fjord doesn’t even have time to shake his head before she goes on. “No. It was a lot more of ‘that awful goblin’s kidnapped that poor innocent child, someone call the Crownsguard!’”

“I’m… I’m sorry. That’s awful.”

Nott dismisses his concern like a bothersome fly, but her nails add another few scratches to the chair back as her fingers tighten again. “It was easier with Caleb. He could… people would believe him, when they said Luc was his. He got food for us, even begged… I wouldn’t have let him. I couldn’t bear to see him humiliated like that.” She bites her lip, and he notices how very carefully her eyes stay open, even as she turns her head away. “But I couldn’t let my boy starve.”

Fjord lets out a low breath, and tries to steer the conversation back to less fraught waters. “It must be a relief, then, to be in Savalir.”

“Yeah. A relief.” Nott sighs heavily. “It is. I’m happy that Luc has a home, and that Caleb gets to do something he likes. But that feeling, like someone is coming to take my child from me? Knowing that if someone sees me, their first thought is to reach for a weapon? That doesn’t just go away. Not here. Not ever.”

He wants to tell her that her fear is unjustified. People in Savalir have been fair to him so far, so surely they’d be fair to her too? But he knows, deep below the surface, that she’s right. No matter how many times he goes to town, there’s still a lingering doubt beneath his skin: that this will be the day that someone will shout him out of their store, or ask Jester what a respectable girl like her is doing, walking arm in arm with someone like him. He still finds himself longing for the safety of Vandran’s ghost at his side, as Nott must once have relied on Caleb’s.

“So that’s why you’re always in this cabin?” 

She narrows her eyes, searching his face for signs of judgement, but he has none to give - only pained understanding.

“It’s safer in here, for me. Until my husband… it’s safer.”

“And your boy?” Fjord hates to think of another child unable to leave the tiny world of his room, but Nott shakes her head.

“It’s fine for him out there. He has friends in town. Good children. They keep him out of trouble, and Yasha keeps an eye on him for me when I can’t be there. It’s safer for him to be with her. Better if he’s not seen seen with... And I mean, I don’t blame-” Nott cuts off with a high laugh, not at all convincing enough to hide the pain in her strained voice. “Well, you know. Look at me.”

He can’t imagine what it must be like, to let another woman watch over her child, for fear that she might put him in even more danger. Fjord has no words of comfort to offer. Any attempt would make him a hypocrite, when he still finds it hard to look in mirrors himself. Instead, he takes his cue from Caduceus, who’s done the same for Fjord so many times over the last month: he listens.

“You said you had a husband?”

Nott sniffles. Beneath the shadow of the hood, Fjord still can’t make out the details of her face, but he sees one hand drift up and wipe something wet away from her eyes. 

“Yeza. Luc’s father.”  _ Ah.  _ Fjord nods. “We had a house,” she says quietly. “In Felderwin. Yeza had his apothecary, and we didn’t make a lot, but we had enough. Luc would have grown up happy there, surrounded by children his age. Nobody bothered us. We had a  _ life,  _ Fjord in the Empire. Yeza needed me and I felt… safe. With him, in that house. I want that again, more than anything.”

The longing in her voice touches something in Fjord, and a familiar, incomprehensible, unrelenting phrase springs to his mind. 

_ I could take care of you.  _

A vision begins to take shape in his mind, rooted in the details drawn from Nott’s memory.

_ A little house, with curtains in the windows and two chairs by the fire. Four glasses and bowls in the cupboard, with finer plates set aside for guests in a glass cabinet by the bedroom door. A garden just outside the door - little for now, but growing larger and wilder every day. A figure stoops in the shadow of the crawling ivy, his pink and silver hair as long as his feet and covered by the shade of a wide-brimmed hat, bending low to the ground and plucking a bouquet of flowers to add to the vase on the windowshelf. _

_ He watches the scene unfold from a bend in the road, the dip in the lane that leads to the little house, and trails back to  _ somewhere… _ the farmer’s abode where Fjord just spent the day mending ploughs and sowing seeds, or even farther past that: to the edge of town, and the sprawling forest beyond. _

_ There’s a shout of greeting, and Caduceus turns to look, and Fjord realizes it’s his own voice that called out. _

The solution to all his problems comes rushing together, crystalizing into a beautifully simple  _ possibility. _

He has money saved now, and another month’s salary coming soon. It would be enough to pay the rent for a little cottage, at least until they can afford something more. Fjord is a hard worker, and he’s sure Jester would know someone who was looking for an extra farmhand during the harvest, or a roofer when the winds grow cold. 

It would sting to leave the comfort of the castle, but he and Beau and Jester could still see each other in town. They could still go shopping in the market, still get kicked out of the tavern at two in the morning. None of that would have to change. He’d just be going home to a place of his own - of  _ their  _ own, where Caduceus wouldn’t have to work on the days he was unwell. Fjord would make enough for the two of them, and Caduceus could tend the garden, and there would be no more worries beyond how heavily the rains would fall this season, or what to make for supper tomorrow night. 

There was a sailor that Fjord knew, ten years back, who sailed with Vandran’s crew. He met a girl in port - a rich one, whose mother ran the merchant guild in the region. The man was mad for her, enough to give the sea life up for good. Fjord couldn’t comprehend it at the time - why someone would leave the sea for the sweetness of kisses, and a settled life. But as he listens, his mind drifts further from Nott’s story - how she still misses her husband, how she hopes he’ll join her one day - to the heat of Caduceus’s breath against his chin, his large hands closing around Fjord’s, and the way that they can spend every hour of every day together, and it still never feels like enough.

He thinks that he finally understands the choice the sailor made. He thinks that if Caduceus would have him, he would be happy to discover what sweetness kisses could bring. He thinks he would buy a house, where Sabian’s feet would never have reason to tread, and keep both them safe within it.

He thinks he would give up the sea, if it meant someone to come home to at night, and a candle in the window, never burning alone.

Fjord jolts back into the conversation as Nott echoes the name that occupies every corner of his distracted thoughts. 

“-nce Caduceus said he would try to help, but there isn’t much he can do for Yeza. The Empire-”

“Caduceus?” Fjord asks, furrowing his brow in confusion. “How would Caduceus be able to help?” He can’t imagine there’s much a gardener could do for someone trapped an ocean away.

Nott stares back at him, equally puzzled. “I mean, if anyone could help, it’s the prince, right? Royals can make  _ anything _ happen. That’s why they’re royalty.”

“Sorry,” Fjord says slowly. “I must be tired. I think I misheard. Can you run that by me one more time?” His brain is buzzing, trying to fit together words that make no sense in combination. Like Caduceus, and  _ royalty. _

“Pay attention, Fjord,” Nott chides him. “I was just saying that Prince Caduceus offered to help, but there isn’t much he can do, since Savalir doesn’t have a formal relationship with the Empire-”

“I’m sorry,” Fjord forces out as he stands abruptly. Nott rises to her feet as well, hand twitching towards her hip at his sudden movement. “I hate to run out on you like this, but I just… there’s something I needed to do. Silly me,” he laughs, knowing full well how crazed he sounds, “I forgot about it. Thank you for inviting me into your home. It’s really been... quite lovely.”

With that, he rushes towards the door. Nott stares after him, but makes no move to stop him from leaving. 

“...Alright,” she says. “I guess you have to go then.”

“Sorry,” he mumbles again, hand already turning the handle and pushing the door open. “Say goodbye to Luc for me.”

A blast of cool air hits his flushed forehead as Fjord stumbles outside. It takes all his strength not to fall back against Nott’s door - to force himself to take the measly twenty steps required to ferry him back to his own cabin. He fumbles with the key on the stoop, dropping it twice and starting again, until at last the latch clicks and he lurches inside, and finally lets himself fall to pieces.

Nott must have been wrong. She’s just a paranoid, isolated shut-in, how would she even have  _ met-  _

And it makes no sense, regardless. Caduceus is a  _ gardener. _ He told Fjord so himself. What kind of prince spends half his days kneeling in the soil, chatting the evenings away with the hired help? How is it possible that in all that time, he wouldn’t have even  _ mentioned  _ to Fjord that he was also, coincidentally, the ruler of this entire country?

And still, a queasy parallel rises in Fjord’s mind - of Sabian stealing him away in the dead of night, and returning him to the servant’s quarters by morning, so no one would know they were together. Princes don’t associate with servants. They don’t condescend to be seen with someone so beneath them. Why not keep Fjord hidden away, in the corner between buildings, or a greenhouse, at the very edge of the grounds…

Fjord walks forward to the table and places his hands upon it, trying to find it in himself to breathe normally, to think about this  _ rationally. _

He only has Nott’s word for it, and that’s a paltry confirmation at best.  _ Caleb. _ Caleb would know for sure, and he would tell Fjord true. It’s not like he’s ever asleep at this hour.

A new daydream fills Fjord’s mind, of Caleb opening his employee roster and pointing to the name inked in a neat, efficient script. 

_ Caduceus. Yes, he’s been here even longer than me. The best gardener in all of Savalir. Absolutely no other occupation. Why do you ask? _

That’s what would happen. It has to be. It has to be, because if Nott  _ was _ telling the truth-

No. It’s impossible. Caleb will tell him so, and Fjord can go back to picturing the cottage in the country, and he can ask Caduceus about it tomorrow, and everything will be the way it should be.

A rustling tracks by his door, and Fjord’s ears perk up at the sound of approaching footsteps. If this is Beau coming to grab him for another late night tavern excursion, she has impeccable timing. She would have to know the truth too, and he trusts her as much as Caleb. Already, his heart lightens at the thought of hearing the confirmation from her lips. She’ll tell him that Nott’s crazy, and then drag him off to drown his temporary panic in mead and laughter for the rest of the night. 

Eagerly, he rushes to the door and pulls it open. 

“Beau, thank the  _ gods-” _

The grin that greets him isn’t Beau’s. It’s cold, and predatory, and Fjord’s relief freezes into terror at the sight. 

“I’m afraid you’ve mistaken me for your friend, Fjord. But I suppose it wouldn’t be the first time.”

A hand presses to his chest and shoves Fjord backwards into the cabin, as Sabian steps over the threshold and closes the door behind him.


	14. Nyctinasty (The Past)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter-specific warning for non-consensual touching. None of it veers into anything sexual, but the framing and power dynamics involved could still be uncomfortable to read. If anyone would rather skip that passage, watch for the phrase “Was that only this morning?” and move ahead to “So what will you do to me?” There’s a detail-light summary in the end note to catch you up.

Sabian tuts while Fjord shrinks back, searching with wild eyes for an escape path that doesn’t exist.

“Did you really think you could stay hidden from me forever, Fjord?”

Though the words are light, Sabian’s voice is as sharp as the steel at his side - sheathed, for now. But even as Fjord retreats, Sabian’s gloved hand drifts closer to the hilt, his smile tightening into a cruel line.

“But oh, you are _daring,_ aren’t you? So daring, you thought you might get away with it, right beneath my very nose.”

Fjord keeps his mouth shut. Pleading for mercy won’t help him, for it didn’t the last time. His ears are ringing with a cry for help he doesn’t dare utter. The thought of Nott coming to his aid, only to be impaled on the same sword that killed Vandran, is enough to still the breath in his throat. So he keeps quiet, and does nothing but clench his fists to his sides as Sabian advances. 

The rapier is drawn, with a clean _sching_ as the metal leaves the sheath. Its unblunted tip points towards the base of his throat, and Fjord cannot make his feet move away, cannot force himself to run. If Sabian means to kill him, he will kill him, and there will be no ocean to buoy his body up this time, and bring him safe to shore.

“I admit, I had a thought - a _silly_ notion - that you might come back, even after everything. But my better sense told me it was impossible. No man could survive a wound so deep, nor so many days at the ocean’s mercy. Not unless he were a devil in disguise.” The blade makes impact with sweat-slicked skin, and when Fjord swallows, the tip moves with the motion of his throat. “I’m starting to wonder if it’s true. How else could you be here, standing in front of me? Still haunting my steps, after all these years?” 

The tip of the blade trembles, and for a moment, the steely look in Sabian’s eyes shifts, from anger and loathing to something almost like _fear. “_ The father was never found,” he whispers to no one, “so perhaps it _is_ true. How much worse a crime, to lie with a devil than an orc? It would have made the killing easier, I imagine. What mercy could she deserve from her husband after that?” His voice echoes the sword’s tremor, shaking as he stares at Fjord with all the angst of a man unable to reconcile his understanding of the world with what his eyes see.

“Who?” Fjord rasps, mind now spinning with as much confusion as panic. As Sabian rambles on about murder and passions and devil’s work, the sword withdraws, giving Fjord the space to breathe for a blessed moment. Sabian steps away, barely looking back as he paces across the room towards the bed and the window. Fjord’s eyes flicker to the door - still unlocked, _why_ did he leave it unlocked? - but the room is still too small, and there is too little space between them. He would not have time to so much as turn the handle before Sabian would be upon him again.

“Don’t bother playing the dullard with me,” Sabian spits. “I would not have found you here unless you knew. You would not have been on _that_ boat, the day that I arrived, unless you knew. I don’t know how you know, or who told you, but you do. So why don’t we talk frankly, as we used to? Hmm? Servant to prince?” He turns back and dips into a mocking half-bow. Fjord recoils at the wrongness of the gesture, extended from Sabian to him. His stomach swoops into a gull’s flight, as they careen together towards an unknowable conclusion. “Come now, your Majesty, haven’t I always been your closest confidante?”

“What?” Fjord whispers. The words are coming too quickly, too many ideas and fragments to understand, and he fights the urge to cover his ears, to give himself a moment of quiet so that he can try to piece them together into a picture that makes sense _._ Sabian blinks at him, and a moment later something shifts in his gaze - a cog of realization, settling at last into place. The grip on the sword hilt tightens. 

“Oh,” Sabian says, low and soft, and dangerous. “I see.” He laughs, no longer bothering to couch the animosity in a simpering smile. “Gods, I should have known. Even when we were children, you were always so slow, but I couldn’t believe you were _this_ stupid. Didn’t you ever wonder why you were locked away for your first five years? Why nobody could ever say where you came from?” He looks towards the little window, at the curtains still drawn to keep out the morning heat, and now the moonlight as well. “And I was _too_ clever, wasn’t I? But I couldn’t stop wondering, how it was that the woman I once called Mother was who _she_ was, if I was who _I_ was.” He laughs again, and there is no pretending that any mirth lies within the sound. “Maybe it would have been better if I hadn’t been so clever. If I hadn’t asked. If she hadn’t told me.”

Grasping for a lifeline, Fjord narrows in on the one sure fact he can dispute amidst the flying words and the impossible claims. He knows where he came from: the Driftwood Asylum. That is what the Nurse told the man, and the man was happy to remind him of it at every opportunity. He was an orphan, a driftwood stray, lucky to be rescued from that awful place and given somewhere where he would be cared for, in some fashion or another. At least he had work to keep him out of trouble. At least he had a roof over his head.

Only… in all the years, he could never seem to remember anything about the orphanage where he supposedly grew up. He’d passed the building a number of times, out on errands in his teenage years, and the imposing face of its wrought-iron gates had sparked no recollection. In the end, all he could ever remember of his childhood was a single room, and Nurse, and Sabian… 

Sabian, who is the prince of Port Damali, who grew up in the castle. So if they grew up together, Fjord must have grown up in the castle as well.

Sabian, who talks of a woman murdered by her lover, and asks if her child might have been a demon, rather than an orc. Sabian, who calls Fjord _your Majesty,_ even in jest. 

The pieces begin to slot together, one by one.

“Who am I?” Fjord asks in a shaking voice.

He knows the answer. A driftwood stray. Nurse told him so. 

Nurse, who called Sabian her son for as long as Fjord knew her, except she wasn’t a queen. The true queen died - in childbirth, so they say. 

So they all said - the sailors, the merchants, the lonely tavern girls - only, who among the common folk were there to witness what truly happened to her?

“A servant,” Sabian answers, and the calm in his words now is eerie as the wild rambling of before - as though, amidst all of Fjord’s turmoil, there was some relief in the telling for him. “A prince. Both, and neither, just the same as me. We are one person, Fjord, sprung from the same root. Only you were dull and weak, unfit for your position, and pruned accordingly. And I was clever and strong, and found a way to grow up to where the sun shines bright and clear.”

Fjord mouths around the words, still unable to conjure breath to give them voice.

_A servant._

_A prince._

“But after I am married, none of that will matter,” Sabian goes on, waving his free hand through the air. “As the husband of a prince, I will _be_ a prince, and nothing in my past can change that. I will finally be free of you, once and for all.” He looks down to the sword, and hefts it in his hand. “Which leaves only one question - what is to be done with you in the meantime?”

Fjord sees his last dwindling chance at escape disappearing. Shaking off the onslaught of confusion and realization, he gathers himself and bolts for the door. 

Sabian catches him before his hand can even touch the handle, spinning him around and slamming his back into the wood. A hard line of steel presses below his chin - not breaking the skin, but with pressure enough to freeze him still. Sabian is as close to him now as he and Caduceus were in the greenhouse, hiding amidst the branches beneath the Wildmother’s shadow. 

Was that only this morning? Was it truly such a short time ago, that the future looked so bright?

Satisfied that the threat of the blade is enough to keep Fjord where he is, Sabian slides his other hand from Fjord’s shoulder to his chest. Fjord squirms away from the probing fingers, as much as he dares with the threat of death still locked into every muscle twitch. Hot air ghosts over his chin, and the sensation fills him with revulsion rather than comfort - to be sharing Sabian’s breath, when only hours before it was Caduceus’s reassuring touch that held him steady. 

“When I spied you two in the greenhouse, I thought I understood perfectly. If you were crafty enough to find your way onto my boat, surely you were crafty enough to find a way into the prince’s ear as well. Perhaps even his bed? After all, what better way to get close to me, than through him?” Sabian’s fingers tighten in Fjord’s shirt, nails scraping his skin through the fabric with the illusion of a lover’s touch, and the promise of pain lurking in every movement. 

He can’t say what makes him shake more - Sabian’s closeness, or the final confirmation of Caduceus’s identity, from someone who is bound to know. He wonders if it would have been easier to hear from Caleb’s lips, or Beau’s. 

He doesn’t think so. 

“But now I see the truth. How very sweet a pair you two made. The way you clung to him, covering him with your body? As though you’d come to care more for his life than your own.” The grin returns, and Sabian’s hand dips lower, passing over the bulge of the coinpurse below Fjord’s shirt. “As though you _loved_ him.”

The nauseating intimacy of Sabian’s touch mixed with the memory of Caduceus’s arms around him is almost too much to bear, and for the first time, forgetting the sword, Fjord struggles in earnest. Once more, Sabian’s hand bears forward, forcing him roughly into the door. 

“Hush up. We both know there’s no use in struggling. I’ll win every time.” The whisper of steel draws against his throat in millimeters, and Fjord relents to the threat, letting his bruised shoulders go slack. Sabian nods, the pleasure in his eyes at Fjord’s surrender turning his stomach all the more. “You know, I asked the other sailors about you, aboard the ship. None of them had ever seen you with a sweetheart on your arm. How could it be, then, that the first man to tempt you would be my betrothed? It can’t be his body - he’s a scrawny thing, hardly what one would call _handsome.”_ Anger rises in Fjord’s throat, a desperate need to _defend,_ but Sabian ignores his murderous look. “So perhaps it was his coin?”

His fingers dip beneath Fjord’s shirt at last, trailing through the coarse hair that covers his belly. Fjord sucks in a ragged breath as he tries to prepare himself for whatever happens next. But the fingers are gone in an instant, and Sabian’s hand reemerges with Fjord’s purse clutched in his grasp. “Quite a hefty sum for a mere carpenter to be carrying. You must have done your job _very_ well.” 

Fjord watches the money disappear into Sabian’s belt, and a new sort of anger begins to burn in his chest - both for the way Sabian talks of Caduceus, without respect or consideration for his future husband, and for the loss of the money that Fjord _earned,_ that he was rightfully paid for all the work he’s done in the past month. That was his future, _their_ future-

Only, there was no _they,_ anymore, was there? Caduceus is a prince; Fjord can deny it no longer. Even if Sabian hadn’t discovered them, it would have still been over. Caduceus would have gotten married in a few days time, to Sabian, and Fjord would have been left the fool pining after him - as stupid as ever, to have believed there was love for him that meant something more than hidden trysts in the dark. The cottage melts away behind his rapidly blinking eyes, and Fjord is left with nothing but the burning in his throat as the helplessness overwhelms him.

“Now, now, no need to look so upset. I was only teasing. I’m sure my betrothed need not spend so much for the privilege of infidelity - he _is_ royalty, after all.” As Fjord weakens, so too does Sabian’s confidence grow, one rising as the other falls, in equal measure. The fingers return, teasing at the base of his shirt, reminding Fjord that Sabian can take whatever he pleases, whenever he likes. His body, like every possession, has never truly belonged to him. “But I will be keeping the gold. It seems a fair repayment, since you plucked the flower that was rightfully mine.”

A screaming ember within Fjord wants to protest that it isn’t true. That he and Caduceus never so much as _kissed,_ let alone done what Sabian is implying. That he’s stolen no flower, rightful or not. But what would be the point? What Sabian saw in the greenhouse was damning enough, and Fjord… he doesn’t want to give up any detail about what he and Caduceus have- _had-_ unless he’s forced to. Those memories are the one thing left untouched, the one thing that Sabian can’t take from him. 

Even if those memories are wrapped in a lie too.

“Now we must return to the question at hand - what _shall_ be done with you?” Sabian tsks. “I know what the king - my father _-_ would say. The price of adultery has a precedent in our wretched little family. But I’ve learned my lessons well from him, even the ones he didn’t mean for me to learn. I won’t make the same mistakes as he did. One act of passion left the king of Port Damali with no wife, and five years of covering up the mess. That nettlesome groundsmaster already has his eye on me, and I will not give him a bloodstained disappearance to solve. No investigations or postponements, not when I am so _very_ close to my marital bliss.” Sabian’s fingers creep beneath Fjord’s shirt again, feeling out the edge of the scar tissue that laces his stomach. Fjord shivers as his manicured nails probe the hole that Sabian’s sword left, tracing its outline with a delicate curiousity. “But that doesn’t mean I can allow you to continue skulking around the grounds, teasing my husband with the promise of another night in the dirt and the mulch.”

“So what will you do to me?” Fjord asks tonelessly. The entire world has shifted in the course of half a day, revelations coming faster than he has space within his body to hold them all. Now Sabian says he won’t kill him, and all Fjord can do is wait to be told what his fate will be. He has given up hope of altering it. 

When has he ever had control over his own life?

“To you? Nothing. But to Caduceus? Ah, to _him.”_ Sabian smiles as Fjord’s eyes go wide, resignation blown past by shock. “That seems to hit the right spot. Funny, how much easier this love of yours makes the whole affair. Tell me, Fjord, why do you think I was so certain my blade had killed you, that I did not bother to finish the job before having you tossed into the waves?” Fjord shakes his head, still caught on Sabian’s threat, lost in the helpless pounding in his chest as he thinks again and again, _he wouldn’t dare, not Caduceus, he couldn’t, he_ wouldn’t- “My blade was poisoned, you see. Another gift from my dear father, to be used only in my _direst_ need. The rain must have washed some of the venom off, but I believe…”

Sabian’s hand, still beneath Fjord’s shirt, stiffens to a flat palm, and he drives it into Fjord’s gut, pulling the sword away just in time for Fjord to keel forward as a deep, roiling pain spreads from the wound throughout his entire abdomen. He tastes blood in his mouth as he heaves, Sabian watching all the while, smile never shifting.

“Some still made it inside, I see. Excellent. It’s the kind of poison that eats you from the inside out, tearing through organs and leaving no trace to the outside eye.” Sabian’s sword no longer threatens his neck, but Fjord doesn’t have the energy to push away from the door. He can’t do anything but cough and curl his arms around his middle, the pain lessening only in achingly slow waves. “Don’t worry, if you aren’t dead yet, it probably won’t kill you. Whatever damage was done is finished by now. But I wonder, given the full dosage, how long Caduceus would survive?”

“So what?” Fjord forces out through reddened teeth, pain lending him a burst of clarity amidst the fog of despair. “You’ll poison the crown prince of Savalir if I don’t do what you want?” He laughs, incredulous, around the blood bubbling in his throat. “Where will _your_ crown be if your husband dies?”

“On my head, I think. After all, who will know what I’ve done? A little tonic in his ear each night, after he goes to bed - not enough to kill him, at least not at first. Everyone knows how sickly he is, how wan and half-starved, long before I arrived. It was inevitable he would take a turn for the worse sooner or later. I’d simply be hastening the process.” Sabian sighs, clucking his tongue as he speaks to a faceless audience of admirers. “What a shame, for my husband to waste away so soon after our marriage vows, but at least Savalir will not be left leaderless in his absence.”

“Then I’ll tell someone what you’ve done-”

“And _I’ll_ tell them the truth - that you’re nothing more than a spurned lover, whose affair with my betrothed I _graciously_ allowed for the sake of the marriage going forward. Looking back, people will remember how often Caduceus visited that precious greenhouse of his, and how much time you spent there too. Why would you have been together only behind closed doors, if what you’d been doing wasn’t shameful?” 

Sabian’s words pierce through Fjord’s heart, for as much as they are wrong, they are also _true._ Fjord gave Caduceus everything he had to give, and Caduceus hid the most important parts of his life from him, out of shame. It always comes back to _shame._ Caduceus’s, enough that he couldn’t bear to spend time with someone like Fjord publicly. And Fjord’s, that he cannot blame him for it. 

“Who do you think they will believe, Fjord? A grieving husband, and Savalir’s rightful king, or the scheming servant who so callously seduced their lonely prince on the eve of his wedding night?”

He doesn’t need to say a word. They both know the answer. _They will believe you._ Fjord has always been a liar, because that is all anyone has believed of him, from the day Nurse gave him away to the man. The world looks at his skin and sees a dangerous man. It looks at his hungry eyes and sees a thief. It looks at his body and sees someone fit for hard work - not kindness, not friendship, and not love. 

He’d thought it was different, here in Savalir. But if he was wrong about Caduceus, who’s to say what else he’s been wrong about? Caleb, Jester, even Beau… if he went to them, saying he’s… what, the true prince of Port Damali? That his mother was murdered, and Sabian is an imposter, who has no qualms about killing his darling husband once the throne is secure? 

_He_ doesn’t even believe it, not truly. Not yet. 

And neither would they.

“What do you want me to do?” Fjord asks quietly, closing his eyes so he doesn’t have to see the final triumph in Sabian’s. He still feels the way the air changes around them. How Sabian stands even taller than before as Fjord shrinks, until he is a boy again, cowering below a raised fist and praying for nothing more than the punishment to be over.

“You’re going to go to Caduceus, _tonight,_ and tell him the affair is over. Tell him you’ve had a change of heart, and that you won’t be his secret lover anymore.” Fjord’s heart pounds at the thought of saying those things, or some approximation of them, to Caduceus, but he does not protest. “Say you’re leaving Savalir, and that you won’t be coming back. No need to tell anyone else of your departure - a note will do, left here in your room.” Sabian taps the edge of the table. “Then you’re going to take your things, and go into town. You will be _seen_ leaving through the front gates of the castle, and you will be _seen_ purchasing a room in the tavern for the night, so that if anyone asks, there is no doubt that you left by your own choice. And then, Fjord, you will _never_ be seen again.” Sabian pats his cheek lightly, the way a father might his erring child, once a tearful apology is made. “I’m giving you one chance to make that choice yourself. If I ever see you again, I will not hesitate to make it for you.”

And slowly, still without raising his eyes, Fjord nods.

“You’ll do it?”

“I’ll do it.”

“Everything I said? If you don’t, I’ll know. My betrothed and I may have little in common, but we do still talk. If I find you’ve told him any pretty lies about your past, or mine, I’ll consider the deal off. And neither of us wants that, hmm?”

“I _said_ I’ll do it.”

“Good.” Sabian extends a hand, the rapier still held loosely in the other, and Fjord stands on shaking legs and forces himself to take it - to shake Sabian’s hand like they’re nothing more than business partners negotiating an offer that benefits them both. Like he hasn’t just agreed to give up everything he cares for to Sabian, for a second time. “His room is in the tallest spire, four flights from the second landing, along the eastern wall.” Sabian pulls Fjord close one last time, leaning in to whisper in his ear, “Unless, of course, you already knew that.”

Then Sabian releases his hand and steps past him, opening up the door. He turns one last time, then pulls a single gold piece from the stolen purse and tosses it into the dirt. “For the room,” he says with a wink, the mask of courtly cheerfulness once again in place.

Sabian waits expectantly - for what, it takes Fjord a long moment to understand. With a sickly burst of shame, he kneels to pick it up. The approving look from above burns the back of his neck, and the humiliation is just as heady as any time the man made him beg for scraps - as low as the dogs of the kennel, and just as desperate for his meagre dole. 

“Goodbye, Fjord,” Sabian says as Fjord stands, then turns on his heel and walks back into the night.

The echo of those familiar words lingers in the air, more sure now than they were a month before, and above them, Fjord hears the wailing of violent rain from the cloudless sky, as the black ocean closes around him once more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Summary of skip passage: Sabian explains what he realized when he saw Fjord and Caduceus in the greenhouse: that Fjord wasn’t just pretending to be with Caduceus to get close to Sabien - that he loves him. As he explains, Sabian reaches beneath Fjord’s shirt and steals his coinpurse, claiming it as payment for the ‘flower Fjord plucked’ that was rightfully his. He then touches the healed wound in Fjord’s stomach, while saying that he plans to deal with his and Caduceus's infidelity differently than the king of Port Damali did with Fjord’s mother. Most importantly, he doesn’t want to arouse suspicion, and risk possible postponement of the wedding as a result of Fjord’s mysterious ‘disappearance’.
> 
> \-----
> 
> You might have noticed that the chapter count just jumped again. This chapter and the next were originally supposed to be one, but then Sabian decided his villain monologuing could not be contained to half a chapter *shruggie*.


	15. Swidden (The Spire)

Fjord finds himself wishing, just this once, that someone would accost him in the halls. He longs for a guard to materialize, to tell Fjord he’s wandered into a place forbidden for those of his station. Maybe that guard would send him back to the servants’ quarters with a cuff on the ear, a warning not to be so careless in the future, and he’d have no choice but to turn around and return to his cabin. But the castle is quiet at night, as it always is, and there’s no one to notice his progress into the castle’s depths, or care.

Breeze ruffles the overgrown plants in the colonnades, creeping around his feet as he passes through the open outskirts towards the inner halls. Are they untended because that’s the way Caduceus prefers them to be? Every wild and untamed thing that’s found refuge within the castle walls - are they there by his design? 

Are there bits of him scattered all around, that Fjord never noticed before?

It’s easier to concentrate on the steps - _one two, one two, this corner, that staircase_ \- than to think of what he’ll say when he arrives at the spire. The inevitable contradictions - the things Sabian wants from him, and the reality of what’s transpired between him and Caduceus, and what hasn’t - are lying in wait to collide before his eyes, and he doesn’t know what he’ll be able to salvage from the wreckage, if there’s anything left at all.

Without an affair to end, he can’t do as Sabian instructed. But he can’t tell Caduceus the truth about what happened between him and Sabian without risking them both.

Fjord is a good liar, but no lie he supposes (then considers, then inevitably discards) is good enough to make the pieces fit.

The trembling uncertainty is enough to slow his steps. The prospect of seeing Caduceus’s face again, after everything else that’s happened today, is enough to bring them to a crawl. 

Whatever he chooses to say, it will be humiliating. Of that, that Fjord is certain - Sabian would have engineered it no other way. As much as he claimed the goal was to throw off suspicion, there’s no doubt in Fjord’s mind where Sabian’s thrill in asking Fjord to break the news himself lay: it was in Fjord’s red-tinged cheeks and stuttering voice, and the way he bent where Sabian’s hands pushed.

All those days on the boat, when Sabian would ask Fjord to read, then mock him for his performance... all the subtle jabs disguised in playful banter, the insults wrapped in a friendly comment... Fjord finally understands what it was all for. With dirt beneath his fingernails and a single coin in his pocket, he _understands,_ and it’s sickening just how much the boy he once called ‘friend’ has come to remind him of a different man.

But Fjord is not so much of a coward that he’d condemn Caduceus to his fate, just to save himself from one more debasement. He’s borne enough shame in his life to live through ten minutes more, and If that’s enough to save someone else’s life, it’s more than he’s ever gotten for his trouble before.

He’s not a child anymore. No childish excuses when for once, his instructions are clear.

He’ll come up with something. He will, because he has no other choice.

No guards block the entrance to the upper spire - another potential excuse, banished. In Port Damali, there would have been four men-at-arms guarding the winding staircase, with another half dozen lurking in the hallways beyond. But there’s no one to stop him, no one to forbid his entrance to the hallowed halls above, and so Fjord steels himself, and begins to climb.

He climbs higher than any crow’s nest, higher than any perch along the ocean’s cliffs - past the first landing, and higher still. The second landing comes far too soon, and even so, his breath is achingly heavy when he reaches it. His legs shake beneath him, as weak as if he’d run for miles in the effort. He steadies himself against the wall as the next flight of steps blurs, the stairs multiplying before his eyes into a hopelessly steep ascent. The remaining floors of the tower seem an impossible hurdle in this light, and he growls his frustration to the empty air.

Why is his body failing him _now,_ after every horrid thing he’s overcome? After everything else he’s survived?

That frustration - at his body, at Sabian, at the forlorn task he’s walking towards - is enough to spur his feet into movement, and that frustration is all that bears him up the next four flights of stairs and into the hallway that follows. 

He’s not quite at the top of the spire yet, but by the change in furnishings - the elegant banisters and sconces lighting the way - Fjord knows he’s reached the royal apartments. There are four rooms in the hallway, two on either side, but only one faces to the east. 

Caduceus’s, if Sabian steered him true. 

It still seems impossible to believe that he’ll find him here, in a place so different from the humble shade of the greenhouse’s walls.

There’s dirt beneath his fingernails. The thought continues to nag at him as he walks forward. It’s the first time in weeks Fjord has had reason to be self-conscious of it. It’s not something he ever needed to worry about with Caduceus, before.

The other three doors whisper sweet distractions as Fjord passes them by, and he pauses at each, looking over their designs and savouring every second that stalls his progress towards his destination. 

The first is the plainest of the four: a carved door of mahogany, elegant but austere. The second, facing the first and closest to the rounded stairwell, is a little more cheerful. Its pale shades of mauve stand at odds with the iron knocker above the door handle, warning those who approach to announce themselves before entering. Fjord reaches out a finger and trails it along the cool curve of metal. It comes away chalky, coated with layers of dust.

The third door sends Fjord’s eyes reeling. Its haphazard, technicolour designs tell of grand adventures, of flowers and magic and tricks pulled from the shadows. It almost reminds him of his own cabin’s door, painted with whorls of abstract patterns and obscure symbology by the mysterious Molly’s hand. In both cases, it’s clear there are meanings to every element of the design, but Fjord doesn’t understand the person who painted them well enough to guess what they are. 

He lingers a long moment outside that third door, trying to parse the story recounted by its painted figures, while the unnatural silence of the hallway presses in, and in. At last, the weight of it is too much to bear, and he’s forced to turn around and confront the dread anticipation at last.

He wouldn’t have needed Sabian’s instructions to find Caduceus, Fjord discovers. One look would have been enough to know who the final room belongs to.

The door before him is painted in a similar manner to the one across from it, if a touch less skilled. The branches that form the border of its design lack the same crispness as the mirrored filigree, their green leaves muddled with brown where the lines of paint ran together before they dried, but the same love is evident in every imperfect brushstroke. Red ladybugs and teal-speckled dragonflies dot the expanse of the tangled forest that decorates the door, bright splashes of colour amidst the other muted hues. Fjord’s fingers itch to trace their outline, to see if they’ll come alive under his touch.

A little light spills from beneath the door, but there’s no noise from within. Or maybe there is, and Fjord just can’t hear it, over the sudden rushing of blood in his ears. 

No use delaying now, though he still hasn’t come up with a plan for what he’s going to say once he enters. Even if he had all the time in the world, he suspects it would make no difference. 

He lifts his hand. 

Clenches his first.

Closes his eyes.

Knocks.

There’s no response.

Far from relief, the lack of acknowledgement only heightens Fjord’s dread. He sucks in a breath and tries again. Still nothing. 

Fjord’s face flashes hot and cold as anxiety overtakes him. Caduceus _has_ to be here. He has to be, because Sabian didn’t tell him what to do if he isn’t. 

Reluctantly, Fjord puts his hand on the knob. It turns without resistance, the door creaking open gently with barely a push. Through the crack between wood and stone, Fjord spies a four-poster bed hung with gauzy curtains, a rug of woven hemp laid at its feet. The same light that spilled under the door flickers from somewhere off to the side, beyond what he can see without moving further in.

He steps through the crack before he can lose his nerve, then turns towards the light.

There’s a window on the far side of the room, that borders the eastern corner of the spire. Beside it sits a single armchair, and a low table set with a steaming kettle. Two sticks of something softly burning lie in a dish by the kettle’s side. The chair is turned towards the window’s face, though in the dark of night there’s little to see through its glassy portal. 

There’s a figure seated in the chair, holding a cup between slender fingers. He doesn’t glance back at the intrusion, even when Fjord clears his throat to announce his presence. He just stares out into the darkness, steam drifting around his head, and mingling with the sweet scents of smoke and incense.

“Caleb, I told you we’d talk tomorrow-”

Fjord’s breath comes in sharply, and the figure whips around at the sound. The teacup falls to the floor, unshattered, but cracked in two places. Neither makes any further move. They stay frozen, staring at each other from across the room: Caduceus, half twisted out of his seat, and Fjord, with one hand still on the door. 

It’s only now, with the undeniable truth before him, that Fjord can accept what Nott implied, what Sabian confirmed. There was a tiny part of him still holding out hope that it was all one more cruel trick, or even that he was just stupid enough to have misunderstood. But here is Caduceus, wrapped in a white linen nightshift and perched in a velveted armchair, at the top of the tallest spire overlooking the whole land of Savalir, and Fjord can deny it no longer.

That last bit of hope dies, as the tea spills from Caduceus’s cup and drowns the stones between them.

“Fjord,” Caduceus croaks out at last, and Fjord forces himself to stand taller than his body is willing to do on its own. What dignity he has left, he balls up into a shield inside his chest, and makes himself close the door behind him. 

Even if he tried, he can’t run from this.

“So. This is your room, huh?” He makes a show of looking around, though he takes in few new details on the second perusal. It’s more an excuse not to look towards the window or the chair, or the person who stands between them, still frozen in place. “Fancy.”

For as much as the door was unmistakably his, the room itself doesn’t feel much like Caduceus to Fjord. It’s too sparse, for one. There are too few touches of the man he’s spent the last month getting to know. The space is comfortable, but in a way that brokes no alteration. Like everything has its place, and has _always_ had that place, and has never been moved in the decades since. 

Fjord puts his hand on one of the bed posts. The feeling of hard, lifeless wood beneath his fingers is strange, when all he’s known for weeks is the supple green of living things.

But is it really that the room doesn’t suit Caduceus, that’s causing him such unease? Or is it just that Fjord never knew him as well as he thought?

“How- how did you find out?”

Fjord manages to contain the shudder, his fingernails digging into the bed post as another dwindling hope is smothered to nothing, by the weight of all the things he’d foolishly hoped Caduceus would say. 

Not _‘I shouldn’t have kept this from you’._ Not _‘I’m sorry, please, let me explain’._ Instead, it’s _‘How did you find out?’_

That easily becomes ‘ _Who told you?’_ , or, _‘Does someone else know?’_ And of course, it always wraps around to the same, inevitable question.

_‘How much trouble will you cause me, in the end?’_

“Someone let it slip.” He doesn’t name names - doesn’t mention Sabian, or Nott. He chooses his words carefully, so as not to arouse suspicion. He does the job well. Words have never been easy, but he has learned, through trial after painful trial, how to pretend that they are. “Castle’s not that big, C-” He pauses, the moniker stuck in his throat. 

He can’t bring himself to utter the words _your highness,_ but he doesn’t know if he’s allowed to call Caduceus by his name anymore. 

He scoffs, starting again. “Guess it was only a matter of time.”

“Fjord, I-”

“You know, you could have just told me who you were,” Fjord interrupts, as he restlessly moves his fingers from the bedpost to tangle in the gossamer hangings above. He doesn’t want to feel the dead wood beneath his hand, or to think about how it was once alive. “Don’t think I can keep a secret? Trust me, I’m good at keeping my mouth shut. Had a lot of practice at that.”

“I was going to tell you,” Caduceus says, and Fjord’s hand tightens in the thin fabric as another wave of roiling frustration passes through him, headier than what he felt in the stairwell. He latches onto the feeling, following where it leads, because anger, at least, is a _direction._

“When?” he growls. “When were you going to tell me?”

“Today,” Caduceus insists. Soft footsteps padding across stone tell Fjord that he’s moving at last, freed from the shock that kept him in place. “That’s what I was trying to... but then someone came-”

Another few paces, and Fjord will finally be forced to raise his eyes and look at him properly. He’s not ready to face what he’s afraid he’ll find, and in his panic, he spits out words better kept to himself.

“‘Someone’, being your betrothed, right?”

This time, they both flinch, and Fjord doesn’t need to look at Caduceus to feel the way the air shifts between them. The footsteps stutter to an abrupt stop. 

“...Yes,” Caduceus admits quietly.

“So what, you lost your nerve?” There’s a cruel edge to his own voice, a metal-sharp lacing of anger untempered on his tongue, and as much as he wants to he can’t bring himself to hold back, because the alternative is sinking to his knees in despair. “Why was that? Were you _that_ afraid to be seen with me?”

“What?” Caduceus, sounding genuinely confused, takes a few quick steps forward, and Fjord shies back from the outstretched hand, that had been reaching towards his shoulder. In this moment, a comforting touch seems as painful a prospect as a strike. 

He doesn’t- he has _never_ been afraid of Caduceus. Here, in the private chambers of the ruler of a nation, goading a man who by all rights could call for a whipping on far less than what Fjord has already done, he knows he should be. He should be more frightened than he’s ever been in his life. But he isn’t, and the bitterness that floods into the place where fear should be tastes equally vile, and burns his throat just the same.

“It wasn’t that I didn’t want to be seen with you.”

“Really,” Fjord says, disbelieving, and Caduceus’s voice falters, as his hand drops back to his side.

“I didn’t want Prince Sabian to see me there this morning, that’s true. He’s not… I didn’t trust him to react well. That has nothing to do with you.”

“Right,” Fjord mutters. “Nothing to do with me.” 

It’s Caduceus’s turn to suck in a breath. “I’m sorry-” he says at last, and just like the outstretched hand, Fjord bats his attempt at placation away. He isn’t a stubborn horse to be gentled, or a misbehaving dog, or a _child._ He doesn’t need to be coddled. He just wants someone to speak _honestly_ to him, for once in his life.

And with that thought, Sabian appears in his mind’s eye, leaning down to murmur in Fjord’s ear, with a voice as real as if he were truly in the room, standing behind Fjord and reminding him of his place.

_That’s not something you get to ask for, remember?_

“You’ve got nothing to be sorry for. You’re the _prince,”_ Fjord spits out, the word gumming in his mouth, “you don’t have to explain yourself to someone like me.”

The atmosphere changes again, tightening into terrifying focus as Caduceus tilts his head, and Fjord knows abruptly that he’s let something slip that he didn’t mean to. 

“Like you? What does that mean, Fjord?” Caduceus says, too quietly. His hand twitches, like he’s thinking about reaching out again. Fjord, all too used to monitoring moods and movements, watches his fingers out of the corner of his eye. He tries to remember what it used to be like to answer every question, not with what he believes to be true, but in the way the world expects of him. 

This one should be easy to answer, because it’s one he’s given a hundred, hundred times before. And still, his face burns more fiercely than it’s ever burned, even as he opens his mouth to obediently respond, for being made to say it aloud, by it to someone he trusted above all others never to ask it of him.

“Your servant.”

Caduceus says nothing, for a long moment. When he does speak, the self-loathing in his voice is almost equal to Fjord’s own.

“You’re not my servant, Fjord. I promise, you’re not. And I’m so sorry, if I ever made you feel that way.” 

“Then what am I?” Fjord scoffs, trying to summon back a little more of the anger from before, when all he really wants to do is collapse onto the bed and let the bone-deep exhaustion overtake him. His voice begins to lose its acrid bite, slipping away from accusation into something closer to a plea. “Your employee? Your disciple? Tell me what I’m supposed to be, Caduceus, because I’m getting a little tired of not knowing where I stand.” Any effort at holding the name back fails. He has always been ‘Caduceus’ to Fjord - he knows nothing else, and he is too tired to keep bending his mind to please a person he hasn’t yet had the chance to relearn.

Caduceus’s reply comes out soft, hesitant. Unsure. “I’d hoped you were my friend.”

The ghost of Sabian leans into his shoulder again, taunting Fjord with the curl of familiar words. 

_I’m afraid you’ve mistaken me for your friend. But I suppose it wouldn’t be the first time._

Biting back the urge to throw a fist at the apparition, or the wall, Fjord finally raises his head to look at Caduceus.

He stands only a few feet away now, looking as harrowed as he was six hours before, with the dregs of tea-leaves staining his fingers instead of dirt, and the rose dimmed to grey in his once-vibrant eyes.

Try as he might, Fjord can’t find any lie within them. His voice cracks as the last of the anger slips away, impossible to sustain while looking at the sorrow radiating from each of Caduceus’s narrow bones.

“Then why didn’t you tell me who you were?” 

“I couldn’t,” Caduceus whispers, though there’s no one there but them to overhear.

“Because you couldn’t be seen making friends with one of your servants?” he presses, needing to hear the truth from his lips, regardless of what it might be.

“Because I was afraid to.”

_“Why?”_ Fjord begs.

“I wanted more than I was allowed.”

Caduceus’s hands are trembling. Any other day, Fjord would have assumed illness was the cause, only his are trembling just as violently, as they both linger in wake of the silent admission of a truth too dangerous to speak aloud.

Only this morning, that truth would have filled Fjord with giddy joy. Now, it makes his heart even sicker, to know that there was something more than friendship building between them, something they both felt… and that it no longer matters at all.

And in that hopeless realization, he at last finds the solution to the contradiction. 

There is no lie in his arsenal that could break them apart as utterly as Sabian requires. Caduceus knows him too well by now not to see past a deception. He would ask questions that Fjord couldn’t answer, and in doing so, condemn them both.

For all Sabian was wrong about the specifics, he wasn’t wrong to suspect that his husband-to-be was straying. So perhaps he really did do Fjord a favour tonight, like he said. With every cruel revelation, he taught Fjord exactly what he needed to know at this moment.

There’s only one thing that hurts more than a lie, and that’s the truth. 

“What about what _I_ wanted, Caduceus?” Fjord murmurs, dropping his eyes once more. “Does that matter at all?”

“Of course it does,” Caduceus answers quickly, all too eager to offer Fjord an easy assurance after all the tension of the minutes before. 

_Of course it doesn’t,_ Sabian’s echo teases, the shadow of a hand pressed to his side.

“Then I’ll tell you what I wanted.” He turns away and paces to the other side of the room. Caduceus watches him closely, but makes no move to follow. “I wanted to buy a cottage, out in the countryside - just far enough away that we could still walk to town in the afternoon. I wanted to plant a garden of our own, not one that belongs to some castle but something we grew from the ground up, so that we had something to show your family when they came home.” His voice grows husky, and he shakes his head, forcing himself to finish what he’s started. “I wanted to build another room, or two, or five, so that your brothers and sisters and parents would have a place to sleep, and you wouldn’t have to work till you’re falling over anymore because you knew they’d always be provided for.” The sting of bitter tears rises at the back of Fjord’s throat as he thinks of Nott, trapped in her little cabin but still holding out hope for her husband’s return, because they promised to see this life through _together,_ whatever the cost. “I would have asked you to marry me, Caduceus. Not tomorrow, or the day after, but soon. I would have spent my whole life with you, if you would have had me. That’s what I wanted.”

When he turns back, Caduceus is staring at him, mouth agape and speechless. Fjord lets out a low chuckle, letting his chin drop down to his chest.

“The craziest part is, I honestly let myself believe any of that was possible. Pretty stupid, right?”

“...You’re not stupid, Fjord,” is the only reply Caduceus can muster, and it’s Fjord’s turn to let silence fall without an answer.

After a long minute of waiting, Caduceus finally speaks again. “I can’t,” he says, and to his credit, he sounds genuinely remorseful. But it doesn’t lessen the pain of the rejection, inevitable as it might have been, or the anger that flares once more. 

“I know,” he snaps, and Caduceus tenses at the harsh sound. “Like you said, I’m not stupid.”

“That doesn’t mean I wouldn’t-” Caduceus stops, then tries again. “It’s just- I have my duties, responsibilities-”

“I _know,_ Caduceus. You don’t have to explain anything.” Fjord shakes his head. “We’re from two different places.” Another memory floats to his mind - of the space between two walls, cold and bruised and hungry, staring after Sabian as he walks back to the castle in a huff. _You will always be a servant, and I will_ always _be a prince. Don’t you ever forget that._ “I understand perfectly. ...So maybe it’s time I go.”

The path is almost too easy, in the end. No more barriers to his exit than there were to his entry, and nobody else but himself to blame as he watches Caduceus’s expression crack, splintered with shock and panic.

“You don’t have to go,” Caduceus says, pressing forward, reaching towards his arm and careless of the way Fjord still pulls back from his touch. “You don’t have to. I didn’t… this is my fault, Fjord, you shouldn’t have to leave because _I_ made a mistake. That isn’t fair.”

“Of course it’s not fair.” _None of this is fair,_ he thinks bitterly, but swallows the words down. Now the deed is done, any more of the truth is only an invitation for danger to find him once more. “But what’s my life going to be like here, once you’re married? Do you think your husband will be alright with you leaving him alone to go off to the greenhouse every day with another man? Does he strike you as the sort of person who would be understanding? Do you think he’d just let me be, if he knew?”

Again, Caduceus reels back, and Fjord thinks back to the greenhouse - to Caduceus’s stricken expression, and the way he collapsed after Sabian left - and makes the connection at last. 

It wasn’t sickness he saw in Caduceus in the aftermath of Sabian’s visit: it was horror at the truth of the man he was about to marry, that he was only now seeing in his rawest, cruelest form.

That same need that awoke in Fjord then - to shelter, to _protect -_ surges as Fjord watches the mute horror of realization spread over Caduceus’s face once more. He registers the exact moment when Caduceus’s contemplation comes to an end, as he reaches the same conclusion that Fjord spent the entire walk to the top of the spire reconciling in his mind. 

As long as Sabian is here, there _is_ no happy ending for them. Not even as friends, not even as master and servant. His cheeks lose the last of their colour as he stares at Fjord, heartbroken and despairing.

Just like Sabian wanted.

“Why are you marrying him?” Fjord murmurs into the silence. It won’t change a thing, but this might be his last chance to find out the truth. “We both know he’s not a kind man. We both know he doesn’t respect you. He won’t make you happy, Caduceus.”

“I know.” Caduceus says. “I know.”

“Then why not end it?” Spurred on by the unexpected admission, he presses again. “You’re the prince. You have all the power here. I’m not saying you have to choose someone else, but why _him?”_

A new, unexpected hope blossoms in Fjord’s chest. If he can just convince Caduceus to call off the wedding, then Sabian would never have the opportunity to get close enough to kill him. It would still be over between Fjord and Caduceus, but Caduceus could be free at least, and Fjord wouldn’t have to spend the rest of his life worrying that one day Sabian might do what he threatened to do anyway, out of spite or boredom, or just because he liked the taste of power it would bring.

“I always knew there was a risk,” Caduceus says softly. “A political marriage is rarely a happy one. At least, that’s what my parents thought.”

“Then why go through with it?” Fjord asks again, but Caduceus abruptly turns away and strides towards the window, leaving Fjord behind. When he speaks again, it’s as though he hadn’t heard the question at all.

“Do you know what the verses at the base of the Wildmother’s statue mean?” he says, placing both hands on the windowsill and staring out into the darkness.

The wind whistles from beyond the walls, and Fjord narrows the distance between them, trying to peer past Caduceus and discover what sight is suddenly so fascinating to his eyes. 

“I don’t,” Fjord replies, at last reaching Caduceus’s side and joining him at the window.

“It’s a prophecy. Or, at least, that’s what my family believes.”

The vista opens up to the east, onto the border of the Savalirwood where Fjord exited the forest all those weeks ago. The lights of the town just barely illuminate the edge of the trees, and if he didn’t know what he was looking at, Fjord would scarce have been able to tell it was a forest at all. The gnarled trunks and blistered stumps of the forest cast ghastly shadows over the outskirts of the neighbouring fields, looking as much like a graveyard as a living thing.

And Fjord realizes, _this is what he stares at, night after night._

_“Seek my love beyond the sea,”_ Caduceus murmurs. “That direction was clear to my mother, at least at the time. She believed that portion of the prophecy referred to Tal’Dorei, and so she and her sister went there to search for the answer. But they never returned.” Fjord can’t help but turn his head. He’s heard Caduceus talk of his family before, but he’s never mentioned an aunt, or anything of his mother beyond her name. “ _Seek my love on tidal shore._ Calliope was convinced of her interpretation of that point, and so she and my father went to scour the coasts of Wildemount, and never returned.” Fjord doesn’t dare interrupt, questions disappearing even as they rise to his mind, caught in the lull of the story. “ _Reclaim the stone that long was lost -_ now _that,_ the rest of us couldn’t seem to agree on. Clarabelle believed it was a magical seed, like the pit of a plum, or an apricot. Colton thought that interpretation was too fanciful, that it must be an actual stone. And I… I wasn’t sure. So the two of them left, to search all the libraries in the world for tales of long-lost rocks, or seeds… and never returned.”

“Caduceus...” Fjord says, then trails off, finding he has nothing to say in the face of the overwhelming grief before him.

“The Savalirwood is dying. Everyone else is gone. There’s no one left but me that can save it.”

Fjord sets aside the urge to reach out towards someone that isn’t his to comfort anymore, sorting instead through everything he’s just heard, and coming no closer to understanding than he was before Caduceus began to speak. 

“How will marrying Sabian save the Savalirwoood?”

The way Caduceus begins, it’s almost dreamlike, like any one of the many stories of the Wildmother they’d shared before. It takes an effort for Fjord to remember that Caduceus isn’t talking about abstract figures from fairytale lore anymore. That this is his family, _himself,_ that he’s describing. “There was one theory, floated before all the rest. You know that Port Damali and Savalir used to be allies?” Fjord nods carefully. “There was a sister stone… commissioned the same year as the one that sits in the greenhouse, both by my great-grandmother. It lies within the grounds of Port Damali’s keep.” 

Fjord startles as a different sort of memory trickles into his mind - of grass welcoming him to sleep, and a woman’s face, too overgrown to make out the shape, but he always imagined it kindly as he laid at her feet, hiding from the world beneath the safety of her crumbling arms. 

It couldn’t be- And yet, how many statues did Port Damali’s castle boast? To Fjord’s knowledge, that was the only one, and he’d spent fifteen years within its walls. Neglected as this one was, he can remember no other.

“ _Reclaim the stone that long was lost._ It fit, as well as any other theory. But by that point, the alliance had long since dissolved, and the current king of Port Damali refused to return the statue unless my parents were willing to renew the alliance we’d once had. He demanded that they seal the bargain with an irrevocable guarantee: a marriage.”

“And that’s why you’re marrying him? Because of some deal your parents made when you were young?” 

Fjord’s heart aches to think of one more child traded around like property, but Caduceus shakes his head.

“My parents refused. They loved their children too much to give even one of us away. They gave up their lives to the quest instead, searching for any answer that didn’t require making that deal.” Caduceus sighs. “But they’re gone now. All of them - my entire family, gone. So what difference does it make if I marry a man like Sabian? At least if it saves the Savalirwood, they’d have no reason to search anymore.” His eyes still fixed on the wavering branches of the forest, he says, “At least then, they might come back.”

It would have been a beautiful story, if that’s all it was. Sacrifice, and duty, and honour… Fjord can see the appeal, the romance even, of it all. But he also knows the truth of the world. He knows there’s little left of the statue Caduceus is placing his hope in. It’s not much more than a broken down husk of stone, too long abandoned to be anything else. If it once held words like the one in the greenhouse - a prophecy, in answer to its sister across the sea - they’ve long since been chipped away by time and neglect. He can’t see how it could possibly help just to bring the remains of something so damaged home. 

Fjord can’t help but think that once Caduceus sees what’s had become of his last hope, he won’t find anything left of worth to salvage.

“Couldn’t you just wait a few more years? See if someone else comes back with a better solution?” Fjord sees his opportunity slipping away, as Cadcueus’s eyes grow more and more reticent, and less and less focused on the conversation at hand.

“I can’t wait, Fjord. The sicker the forest gets, the sicker I become.” Caduceus’s head twitches, but he doesn’t look back at Fjord. “I wonder, sometimes,” he murmurs, “if the Wildmother gave me this illness to spur me to action. If I hadn’t waited too long, maybe I would still be well.” Fjord tries to protest, but Caduceus hushes him. “I know why you’re concerned, Fjord, but my parents didn’t make the deal with Port Damali. _I_ did. _I_ brokered the alliance, two years after Clarabelle and Colton left.” Caduceus chuckles darkly. “No one was left to argue the point.”

“And what if it doesn’t work?” Pushing past the pain and uncertainty, Fjord puts his hand on Caudceus’s shoulder and draws him away from the window, turning his gaze from the darkness and the dying forest, and back to the light. “What if this is all for nothing, and you’re stuck with him for the rest of your life, and it still doesn’t fix things?”

“Then at least I’ll know I did my duty.”

Fjord protests, “What duty? What says that your life for a _chance_ at saving this forest is what you’re required to do? They’re _trees,_ Caduceus. You’re a _person.”_ He reaches forward to shake Caduceus’s shoulders, to see if anything can rattle some sense into his words, but he shrugs Fjord off, eyes flaring for the first time with frustration. 

“My family gave up everything to bring that forest back to life. How could I do anything less?”

“That was their choice, Caduceus. It doesn’t have to be yours.” 

Caduceus shakes his head. “Either way, I’ll be unhappy. What does it matter what I choose?”

“So you’re just giving up? You’re just accepting that it’s, what, your _fate_ to be unhappy? When you have a choice to find something better? Not all of us get that choice, Caduceus. Not all of us get to decide.”

“If it’s the Wildmother’s will-” he starts, but Fjord cuts him off.

“If it’s the Wildmother’s will for you to let that asshole make you miserable for the rest of your life, then I don’t think she’s the kind of god you said she is.”

“You don’t understand.” 

“That so? Tell me what I don’t understand.”

“This isn’t about me. This is about my family. There is _nothing_ more important to me than family. Not even happiness.”

Fjord looks at Caduceus, the way his voice shakes around a desperate attempt at certainty, the way he can’t even meet Fjord’s eyes as he says it, and thinks, _this is what family has left us._ Empty rooms and lonely windows, and wondering every day what you did, or were, that made you so easy to abandon.

“I guess I wouldn’t understand,” Fjord says quietly, the words _I could have been your family_ stowed away, for no one else but him to hear. “I never had one.” Caduceus swallows, and Fjord finds he can’t bear the guilt any more than the empty resignation that came before. “So you go do your duty, and I’ll just… go, and we’ll hope that one of us turns out happy in the end.”

_Stop me. Please, stop me. Tell me I’m wrong. Tell me I don’t have to go._

But Caduceus doesn’t, because that isn’t how life is. No prince is going to come and save Fjord from his fate. He should really know that, by now.

“I guess this is goodbye.” He shuffles his feet, waiting to hear Caduceus’s response.

“I guess it is. ...If it wasn’t this way,” Caduceus tries to start, “I would have wanted-”

“Don’t say it,” Fjord cuts him off, knowing whatever follows won’t be something he can take. “Don’t tell me what you think I want to hear. Just figure out what _you_ want, Caduceus. That’s all I ask from you.”

Caduceus opens his mouth, then closes it again, and Fjord takes that as a signal that the conversation is over at last. He turns on his heel and starts walking towards the door.

“Where will you go?” Caduceus calls to his back.

“Not sure. I’ll figure it out.”

“...At least let me give you something for the road, in case you need to book passage?”

Fjord pauses, halfway through the open door as his heart clenches. Somewhere over his shoulder, Sabian laughs. _Perhaps it was his coin?_ The sound mingles with the memory of the man’s jeering voice, as he counts out sea-stained silver into the palm of his hand. _Who would pay so much, for someone like you?_

Then Fjord keeps walking, before he’s forced to hear the jangling of coins, or know how much the price of his disappearance is worth in yet another person’s eyes.

He leaves Caduceus to his dead forest, and his duty, and makes it all the way to the second landing before his legs go out from under him. Fjord sinks to the cold stone, and breathes, and breathes again, until the evening torches have burnt past the first rung, and he doesn’t dare linger a moment longer where he doesn’t belong.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay, everyone! It's been an incredibly hectic week for me, and this chapter ended up being the most challenging chapter of this fic to write by a mile. But we got there in the end!
> 
> I've gone ahead and bumped up the chapter count to 18, because I'm almost certain at this point that I'll need to split the next chapter as well. But I do believe that 18 is where it shall stay! We've hit the lowest point, which means we're gearing up for the finale :)


	16. Pyrolysis (The Forge)

As much as Fjord was praying for a guard to block his path an hour before, there’s nothing he fears more now, as he stumbles his way back through the same halls that led him to the royal chambers. He has no hat to pull down over his face - _Caduceus,_ he thinks incredulously, _I gave that to Caduceus, but what’s a_ prince _going to do with it_ \- so he ducks his head to the ground and quickens his steps, petrified that if he lifts his eyes, he’ll find Sabian blocking his path, demanding to know if the job is done.

Too late, Fjord realizes that he doesn’t know the second floor of the castle well enough to navigate by instinct alone, and when he raises his head at last, he finds himself utterly lost. It takes another ten minutes of aimless wandering before he lands upon something familiar.

The last time he stood within this archway, the space before him shone with sunlight. He can feel the morning breeze on his skin, as fresh as it was yesterday, but nothing but the moon passes through its closed windows tonight, pale blue light illuminating the throne room and its six lonely seats. Two chairs are pulled forward now, Fjord notes queasily, and the leafy mantle is thrown across them both. Scattered all around the floor below the dais are an assortment of decorations: benches set on their end against the wall, crepe flowers in messy piles, an embroidered carpet folded in the corner. Preparations in progress, for a swiftly approaching celebration.

Who will be tall enough to hang the trappings overhead, if he’s not around to do it? Maybe Beau, with her long crook, seated on Jester’s shoulders, and he almost smiles at the thought of the two of them inevitably crashing down on each other’s heads... until he remembers he won’t be there to see it.

Fjord turns away from the arch, slamming down a gate in his mind as he does, and locking away any thoughts of a future that no longer exists. 

He’s not lost anymore. No need to waste any more time.

From the throne room, he finds his way to the staircase that leads down to the foyer of the main floor. Suddenly, there are three paths before him: to Caleb’s office, to the kitchen, and to the grounds. 

He looks first towards the spiral staircase. Caleb knows something about running, and he’s as smart as any man Fjord’s ever met. He also holds no love for his prince’s betrothed, Sabian said as much himself. Maybe if Fjord went to him, told him the whole truth, is it possible he would be able to convince Caduceus with logic, in a way Fjord’s emotional appeal couldn’t?

He turns next towards the kitchens. Jester doesn’t take no for an answer, not when her heart is set on something. If she trusted Fjord, if she believed his story, she’d wheedle and beg and make those big eyes at Caduceus until he’d have no choice but to agree that this whole affair was a huge mistake. No one can refuse her.

Then he thinks of those big eyes, wide with fear, and Sabian’s sword cutting through layers of pretty blue fabric, and blood blooming at the hilt. He thinks of Caleb’s old master, and how he’s hidden from him, for now - but there’s nothing to stop someone as politically connected as Sabian from sending a missive across the sea, filled with tales of a strange, red-headed groundsmaster, with ties to a far-off place.

He thinks of Caduceus, and how certain he was in his refusal. How convinced he was that _this_ was the only path forward, as awful as it might be. 

His mind won’t be changed - not by Caleb, and not by Jester. 

Not by Fjord.

The sound of a slamming door jars Fjord out of his head, and he looks behind him to discover that he’s back in his cabin, and his own upturned hand is the one that made the noise. He forces himself to take a breath as the echo of crashing wood fades away. Nott might still be awake; he can’t risk her coming over to check on him. 

He doesn’t know what he’d say, if she did.

_I should have been more like you. I should have stayed hidden, kept away from the world. Maybe then, I’d be safe. Maybe then, no one I cared for would ever be in danger again, because of what I am._

He goes to the chest first, for lack of a better place to start. All of his possessions - the coat, his second shirt, a square of chocolate from Jester, a book from Caleb - fit neatly into his little basket, with plenty of room to spare. He debates stealing one of the down pillows to add to the pile, just to have somewhere soft to rest his head at night. But whoever replaces him will need them after he’s gone, and besides, he’ll never hear the end of it if Beau has to go out and gather more feathers from her petulant charges’ nests…

Not that he’ll be around to see that, either.

Fjord lays the pillow back down, suddenly queasy again, and goes to the table. The lantern isn’t lit, but it’s a clear night, and he can see well enough by moonlight to begin crafting his farewell note. He opens his little notebook, and his eyes swim as he stares down dumbly at the numbers scrawled across the final written page: the last measurements for the glassmaker in town. 

He and Caduceus only had a few more windows to fit, and then the greenhouse would have been whole again. They accomplished so much, got _so close,_ and Fjord can’t help but think that if only they had finished before he had to go, he would have been satisfied. It would have been enough.

It’s a lie, but the truth lies behind a gate he’s no longer willing to open.

Flipping past the page of numbers, Fjord tears out a clean sheet of paper and begins to write. The script is messy, near to illegible in some places, but he doesn’t care. Let people read what they want into the way his words run together. Let Sabian tell them what to think. He doesn’t care about any of it.

He _can’t_ care, or he’ll go mad.

Once finished, he folds the resignation - full of simple statements about urgent business outside Savalir, about not being able to stay even a night longer, all of it littered with apologies and thanks and phrases like ‘this is where the tools are, if anyone needs them’ - and signs the letter with a single name, because he never gave anyone in Savalir his other. 

It’s all lies, and he doesn’t know if anyone will believe them. He quietly suspects that if Beau is the one to find the note, she’ll immediately know something’s not right. But it’s not like a gooseherd can do much to change the fate of countries, and he’ll be long gone by the time she begins to uncover the answers she’s always so eager to collect. Hopefully by that point Sabian will be safely married, secure enough in his position not to exact revenge on one of the staff just for asking the wrong questions. 

He _hopes,_ but he can’t be certain. Caduceus may be a different sort of leader, not prone to fits of pique or temper, but Sabian was born and bred in Port Damali’s castle, the same as Fjord. He knows what punishment would have been brought down on a too-inquisitive servant within those fortified walls.

If there’s one thing he’s grateful he won’t be around to see, it’s what changes will come to Savalir under Sabian’s rule.

Fjord goes to place his key on top of the folded letter. His fingers clench, unwilling to surrender the last vestige of his protection, his security, his sense of belonging to this new home. But the cabin isn’t his anymore. 

The key falls to the table with a thud, and he grabs his basket and walks through the unlocked door, and doesn’t look back.

Once he’s free of the castle walls, his feet carry him on a familiar path. The tavern will be quiet at this hour. It must be past midnight, by now. Most people will have gone home to rest for work tomorrow. 

Where will he go, when the dawn comes?

Fjord puts his hand on the handle of the tavern door. It vibrates slightly with the sound of laughter from within. One low violin still keeps time with the slurred conversation of evening stragglers, beckoning them towards one more drink, one more hour. Any other night, he would have been hauling Beau out on his shoulder at this point, with a giggling Jester trailing behind them both, and for a moment Fjord’s heart lifts. At least he can rest here tonight, and savour one last cherished thing, before everything else is gone.

...But if the note is discovered before morning, this is the first place Beau would look.

Reluctantly, he draws his hand away, letting the muffled laughter fade into the quiet of the night air. There are other taverns, he chides himself. A different one would be safer. And what does comfort matter? It’s not as if he’ll be sleeping tonight.

Fjord ends up settling on the cramped attic room of a smaller tavern, near the western gates. He sits on the bed and stares at the coins left in his hand for a long while, counting their meagre sum over and over again, like it will make it any more. 

Three silver pieces are all he has left, after paying for room and board for the night. It’s not enough to get him to the sea; it’s barely enough to buy food for tomorrow. And even if he made it there, what then? Vandran is dead, and his connections don’t reach as far as Savalir. Maybe he could convince another captain to take him on, but even that prospect holds no joy for Fjord. There’s nothing to sail towards - no goal, other than to put distance between him and Sabian. 

He didn’t care about his purpose before, when all he cared about was escaping the hell of Port Damali. But now he’s had a taste of something better: a home, a circle of friends, a _life._ He doesn’t know if he can go back to trawling the same routes year after year, hoping for nothing more than that the pox won’t get him before the next storm comes. 

A ridiculous idea occurs to him, more ridiculous even than the cottage in the countryside. 

He could find his way back to Port Damali. He could stride up to the castle walls and declare for all the world that Sabian is an imposter, that _he’s_ the true prince, and claim his rightful throne. A servant no longer, he’d be Prince Fjord instead - his ship painted with gold leaf, his clothing draped in royal silver. He’d sail back to Savalir, push Sabian to the side and sweep Caduceus off his feet, then dispatch all the military might at his disposal to search for his lost family, while the two of them…

The two of them…

…But Caduceus already said no. He’s already told Fjord his answer, and even in fantasy, Fjord can’t bring himself to pretend his choice was anything else. 

And besides, it’s an impossible dream. He has no hope that the king’s heart would have softened towards a half-breed child that doesn’t even bear his blood, not when his false son has finally gained legitimacy, and netted him a lucrative alliance besides. No wonder the king pushed so hard for a marriage as part of the arrangement. He clears away all his problems with one mighty blow, and doesn’t even have to face his unwanted heir to do it.

Royal bastard or friendless orphan, it doesn’t change a thing. Every person that has ever wanted him is gone, or out of reach. Fjord puts the money away and curls up beneath the blankets, and lets the heavy weight of despair lull him off to an uneasy sleep. 

It’s close to sunrise when Fjord awakens, a crick in his back and an idea in his mind, having hatched from restless dreams of storms, and pines, and blood. 

He had a purpose, once. There was a reason he came to Savalir in the first place, a reason he traversed the forest’s expanse, even in the throws of illness and poison. 

He was going to kill Sabian for what he did to Vandran. 

Fjord had abandoned that quest when he arrived, because it seemed too difficult, and because Vandran was already dead and gone. Killing Sabian wasn’t going to bring him back. 

...But it might still save Caduceus.

In the wee hours of the morning, Fjord rises and sits by the window, watching the sky turn from muted blue to pink, to red, and pondering all the things that are different now than they were back then.

His first attempts at revenge were stymied by practical concerns: he didn’t have a way into the castle, and even when he did, he didn’t have a way to find Sabian within. But he’s known to the guards at the gate now. They’ll let him in without question. And while he never discovered the location of Sabian’s quarters, he knows where the man himself will be, at one very specific time. 

_It’s on Yulisen, so… six days from now?_

On Yulisen, Sabian will step up to the front of the throne room and take Caduceus’s hand, and promise to love and protect him in front of the whole world. Draped in a mantle of sunlight before six empty thrones, he’ll say words he doesn’t mean, and Caduceus will say the same, and the lie will be complete and whole, and irrevocable. 

Unless Fjord can stop it first.

The pieces of a plan come together in quick succession. Jester has already spent hours showing him the best places to hide within the castle walls: an inventory of nooks and crannies, perfect for watching and waiting. While his goal is more sombre than her usual pranks, they’ll serve the purpose just as well. He’ll go in the morning - not too early, in case Sabian’s paranoia compels him to check with the guards about unexpected visitors - and situate himself, and when the crowd has filtered into the throne room, he’ll follow, and wait for the moment to strike.

There isn’t a plan for what happens after. He doesn’t need one. If Fjord fails, Sabian will have him at last, with just cause to end his life - and the threat he poses - permanently. If he succeeds, and the guards don’t kill him first, then Caduceus will have no choice but to imprison Fjord, or ship him back to Port Damali for punishment. But either way, Sabian’s threats will be at an end. No one will die a slow, horrible death by poison, or a swift one by sword. 

It will be over, one way or the other.

He leaves the tavern before morning’s light has fully broken, feet surer now for having a direction behind them. Fjord fingers the coins in his pocket as he walks through the sleepy streets, following a path he’s done nothing but avoid since coming to the city.

The blacksmith’s shop is far closer to the main city gates than the tavern where he spent the night, and it’s near to midday by the time he makes it through the market. He blinks against the glare of the sun, eyelids gummy from exhaustion and fitful sleep. The clang of a hammer rings out to welcome his approach, or forbid it. The harsh sound bellows in his ears, and he winces with every strike, and waits until the hammer falls silent before walking up to the door.

The smithy is hazy and dark, with little more to light the smoky interior than the softly glowing embers of the dormant forge. Fjord closes the door cautiously, twitching his head towards every noise, but there’s no sign of the orcish proprietor within the main room. Relieved to have a few moments to collect himself, he makes a slow circuit around the shop, examining the tools and weapons on display. A finely honed broadsword and a set of farming shears sit side by side on a wooden table. Curved sickles and long-handled halberds rest on hooks along the wall, and he eyes each in turn, but none are what he’s looking for. 

Heavy footsteps startle him out of his contemplation, and he spins, heart racing, to find himself face to face with all seven and a half feet of the burly blacksmith. He rivals Caduceus in height, with four times the muscle mass, and Fjord shrinks back, retreating until his hips hit the table behind him.

“Looking to buy?” 

The blacksmith’s voice is gruff - not combative, but not particularly friendly - and when he speaks two long sharp tusks poke out over his upper lip. Suddenly self-conscious, Fjord pins his mouth closed, too nervous in the orc’s presence to summon any voice.

“I’m in the middle of something,” the orc grunts, turning around and making his way towards the door at the rear of the shop. “You got something you want, speak up.”

Seeing his only chance ready to walk out again, Fjord swallows and forces himself to straighten up, to speak confidently. “I was looking for a dagger, actually.”

The orc turns, his eyes narrowing as they sweep Fjord up and down, and he can’t help but shrink again under the blatant appraisal.

Whatever the man was looking for, he must find it, because he shrugs and strides to a set of drawers near the back of the shop, reaching in and pulling out a plain, but well-crafted, iron dagger. He slips it into a leather sheath before handing it to Fjord.

“Something like this?”

Fjord pulls the blade out a couple inches, testing the edge by sight. It looks sharp enough to do the job, and he shoves the dagger back into the sheath too forcefully, as his heart leaps with horrified anticipation. The intended purpose of the blade, before so blissfully abstract, becomes alarmingly real as he holds the instrument of murder in his hands.

“Yeah,” he manages to fumble out. “Yeah, that’s what I need.”

He can feel the blacksmith’s eyes on him again, but he can’t seem to pull his own away from the blade, as he wonders at the way such a light piece of metal can sit so heavily in his grasp.

“Don’t think I’ve introduced myself,” the orc says, and Fjord blinks, finally tearing his eyes away and looking back up. “The name’s Wursh. And yours is...?”

“Vandran,” he replies quickly. He could think of no better alias on the walk over, but he’s not stupid enough to go by his real name - not anymore.

“Nice to meet you, Vandran.” Fjord doesn’t quite manage to hide his flinch, and Wursh’s eyes narrow further still. “It’s three gold for the dagger, if you’re needing it today, or for a little more I can make you something custom by week’s end. I’m pretty light on that sort of thing at the moment. People don’t need much in the way of weapons ‘round here, ‘sides as protection from the occasional wolf or roadside bandit. Most of my trade comes in hoes and horseshoes.”

Fjord barely hears the rest of Wursh’s spiel, struck dumb at the quoted price. Three gold is ten times what he has in his pocket. He made more in a handful of days at the castle, but it could take weeks to scrounge that much coin outside of it. 

He doesn’t have the _time._

“So, are you interested?” Wursh takes the dagger from his hands and walks behind the counter, placing the weapon between them with a raised eyebrow.

Already dreading what he’s about to say, Fjord steps forward and reaches his hand into his pocket.

“This is all I have.” He puts the three silver pieces beside the dagger, laying them out in a flat row so Wursh can count their meagre value. “I know it’s not enough, but I can work it off. I, uh, I haven’t worked in a smithy before, but I’m strong.” The pronouncement sounds ridiculous when he compares his body to the broad, tattooed muscles before him, and a blush of embarrassment creeps down Fjord’s neck. “I can pump the bellows, do deliveries, clean the shop - whatever you think is fair repayment for the debt. Just… tell me what you want. We’ll work out a deal you’ll find amenable, I guarantee it.”

Fjord doesn’t dare meet Wursh’s eyes as he finishes his offer. The enormous figure before him looms in silence, growing larger and larger with every moment Fjord keeps his eyes on the floor, until he seems to encompass the whole room. 

Selling himself like this - when he has worked so hard to avoid returning to servitude - would have been unthinkable twelve hours before. But he needs the dagger, so what else is there to do? He’s willing to try, so long as he’s free at the end of the week. Surely whatever task Wursh puts him to can be finished before then. And if not, then if he has to, he’ll steal what he needs. The orc would be angry, but what’s one more pursuer on a dead man’s tail?

Still, even with all the rationalizations his mind can provide, the man before him isn’t like Caleb, with his scholar’s hands and cautious disposition. Fjord knows the risk of offering himself up to someone who could break his body without care, and nervous chills tangle in his stomach as he waits for the reply. 

When Wursh answers at last, his voice is far gentler than Fjord anticipated. “Like I said, I don’t sell weapons often, except for protection.” He pauses, then says, softer still, “You buying this for protection, son?”

The silver of Sabian’s sword flashes through his mind, and Caduceus’s white sheets - so easily stained, by a trickle of blood running from ear to throat.

“Yes,” he whispers, and it’s not a lie.

Wursh’s fingers ponder the dagger, then the row of coins. Fjord draws in a breath, wondering if he’ll take the money and the dagger both, and send Fjord back out onto the street with nothing. But it’s not as though he could stop him even if he tried, so he holds still, or as still as he can, and waits for his judgement to fall.

“Those look like worker’s hands, but not fighter’s. I’m guessing you’ve never used one of these before.” 

Slowly, Fjord shakes his head. There’s no point in deception - if Wursh asked him to demonstrate his skill with the dagger, the truth would be laid bare in an instant.

“I’m not in the habit of selling to people who are as liable to hurt themselves as someone else.” 

The firm refusal rocks Fjord on his feet. He’d expected something difficult, even cruel - but not an outright denial. Every man has a price, and for three gold… if not labour, then what would Wursh accept? His mind flutters with scant possibilities, each less appealing than the last, and his jaw works around the tightness in his throat, as he tries desperately to find something else to offer up.

“I can see those wheels moving in your head,” Wursh says, “so I’d ask you to let me finish before you say anything more.”

If Fjord’s mouth was open, it would have snapped closed at the admonishment. He straightens his back again, holding his breath as he waits, and Wursh sighs heavily.

“I’m not much of a fighter myself, but I’ve swung a blade or two in my time. You let me give you a few lessons, till I’m satisfied you can hold that dagger right-way up, and I’ll sell it to you.”

“I still can’t pay,” Fjord reminds him, confused. Lessons he’ll accept, and gratefully too, but if anything, that should put him more in debt than before.

Wursh looks him up and down again, not making a secret of how his eyes glide over every detail of Fjord: his clothes, not yet washed from yesterday’s labour; the basket on his arm, haphazardly packed with a few possessions; the circles beneath his bloodshot eyes, and the quake of exhaustion in his bones, that Fjord can’t seem to still.

“You got a place to stay tonight, son?” he asks, a non-sequitur in lieu of an answer. Fjord shakes his head again, too dumbfounded to think whether it’s the right response. “Thought as much.” Wursh turns around and goes to the wall, where a number of aprons are hanging from a low hook. He takes one off and tosses it to Fjord. 

“I’ve got a backlog of orders a mile long, and a storage room in the back with enough space for a scrawny runt like you to curl up for a few nights. You don’t mind getting your hands dirty, then put that on and follow me. I’ll find work enough for you.”

Fjord stares at him. “Why… that’s very kind, but you don’t even know me. Why would you let me stay here?”

“Don’t call it a kindness till your skin’s done blistering tomorrow,” Wursh grumbles, but he voice softens as he steps around the counter and leans down in front of Fjord, till they’re more at the same level. “You aren’t the first person to come to Savalir with nothing in their pockets but bad memories. Life isn’t easy out there, ‘specially not for folks like us.” He presses his finger to his upper lip, grinning slightly as the tip of a tusk emerges. “You need somewhere to lay your head while you find your place here, I’m happy to provide, just like other people did for me.” He claps Fjord on the shoulder, hard enough to stagger, but with no menace behind the motion. “But that doesn’t mean I’ll turn down an extra set of hands when they’re offered.”

After a long moment, Fjord slips the apron over his head, and wordlessly follows Wursh towards the forge. 

He spends the rest of the day mulling over the strange kindness he’s been shown, and doing every task that’s asked of him. By the end of it, his fingers are caked with more soot than soil, and his face aches from the heat of the coals. But as promised, Wursh lays out a few pillows for him in the back room, and even hands him a bowl of stew before retreating to his own room upstairs to eat in privacy. 

With a belly no longer aching, Fjord lays down on the wooden floorboards and pulls his coat over his shoulders. It’s a barren sleeping arrangement, especially after a month of good cotton and soft goose down, but safe within the unexpected shelter of the smithy, he manages to find a few hours of sleep.

The next few days pass quickly, all in all. Wursh works from sunrise to sunset, it seems, and Fjord is a dutiful helper, eager to show enough progress to be worthy of the promised dagger. In return, Wursh does as he promised, and takes an hour or so each day to drill Fjord in proper fighting form. Though he hasn’t got the muscles for heavier weapons, Fjord is light on his feet after a life on the uneven sea, and he finds the dagger a good match for him. 

He’d feel even more comfortable with a weapon that had reach, like Sabian’s rapier, but a sword would be too difficult to conceal beneath his clothes, and cost more besides. He’s already getting far more out of this arrangement than he anticipated; he’s not going to push his luck.

They don’t talk much, the two of them. Wursh is reserved, friendly only in passing, and Fjord doesn’t dare speak freely, lest any detail that could be used to trace him slips out. But though the work isn’t easy, Wursh is a patient instructor in both fighting and smithing, and he can’t find anything to complain about in his newfound employment, especially when it provides such ample distraction from his own, increasingly nervous thoughts.

Folsen arrives, on the eve of the royal wedding, and Fjord broaches the subject of leaving at last. 

“Right,” Wursh grunts, looking neither pleased nor displeased at the declaration. “Guess you’ll be wanting that dagger then?”

Fjord nods, still apprehensive despite the days of peace between them. But Wursh goes to the back without argument and opens the drawer, retrieving the same dagger he offered at the beginning of the week. He holds the weapon out to Fjord, but pulls it back at the last moment. 

“Before I give this to you, I have one request. Always know what you mean to do with it, and why you mean to do it. It’s easy to get caught up in anger, ‘specially when the world’s given you every reason to be angry. You said this dagger was for protection. Just... remember that, when times get hard. Remember that.”

Fjord swallows, caught by heavy emotion at the unexpected care in Wursh’s voice. “I will.” 

And he means it. He knows what he intends to do, and it isn’t about revenge. It isn’t about anger, or bitterness, or betrayal. It’s about protecting someone: the same protection Vandran offered to him all those years ago, when he was powerless and alone. He won’t abandon Caduceus to a life of misery, no matter what it costs him. 

Fjord has always wanted to emulate the best parts of his mentor. Now’s his chance to prove exactly how much he’s learned.

He sleeps one last night in Wursh’s smithy, and when Yulisen dawns he leaves without saying goodbye, but leaves his last coins on the counter as a farewell gift. _._ It’s not as much silver as Vandran paid for him, but it’s what he has to offer, and it feels good - to be able to give something freely, without expecting anything in return.

That last moment of contentment is enough to buoy his heart. Enough to keep his feet moving, until they ferry him at last to the castle gates, and his last chance to set things right.


	17. Blossom (The Wedding)

Jester’s favourite hiding place isn’t much of anything - a few feet of space, a cloister behind curtains. It’s the kind of nook that might have had a purpose once, in a more populated castle. Now its floor is a mess of unswept cookie crumbs and dollops of melted wax, where a beleaguered kitchen girl sometimes steals away to work in her sketchbook, or to prey on unsuspecting passers-by. 

Fjord has no candle at his disposal, so he whiles the time away in sheltered darkness, trying to keep the claustrophobia at bay as the hours creep along.

He was right that gaining entrance to the castle was easy. One of the gate guards made a comment - he hadn’t seen Fjord around for a while, Beau was looking for him a few days ago - but a non-committal answer was more than enough to get him through. The guards had no reason to mistrust him, after all. No reason to question him. 

No cause to search beneath his shirt, and find the dagger hidden there: cold metal pressed against bare skin. 

He hears the occasional patter of feet beyond the curtain, and harried voices calling out last minute instructions to their equally harried subordinates. No matter how much preparation for an event of this scale, there’s always something else to do. Fjord pays close attention whenever the voices draw near, listening for any hint about the hour, any indication of when the ceremony is meant to start.

His back is beginning to lock up from standing still and silent for so long, his mind equally atrophied, when a pair of familiar voices bring both to renewed attention. Fjord’s breath catches as Beau’s unmistakable sarcasm drifts through the curtain - distant, and achingly _near._

“-happened to waiting for Yasha to get back?”

Caleb’s voice answers, softer than Beau’s, and nearly impossible to make out through the thick fabric. 

“-tried, Beau. He wouldn’t even-” Fjord strains as close as he can to the curtain, not daring to disturb the fabric and give himself away. “-have to go ahead, and sort it all out afterward.”

“I don’t like it, Caleb.”

Fjord can’t catch what Caleb says next. Their conversation fades as they continue their path down the hallway, then around a corner, until the footsteps fade entirely.

Shivering, he fingers the hilt of the dagger, trying to collect himself, and to remember what he’s here for. The temptation to dash out, throw himself at Beau and Caleb’s mercy and plead for their help, is almost unbearable. But he knows his purpose. Any help he begs from them will only put them all in more danger.

It’s too late to change the plan now. 

Finally, he catches a useful snippet from a passing kitchen attendant: with the ceremony about to start, they better get moving, or else dinner won’t be ready in time. It’s enough to know that it’s time to move.

Fjord has never prayed before. He’s not even sure how. But he closes his eyes and breathes one desperate plea to the Wildmother - not for himself, but for Caduceus, who has given so much of himself in devotion to her cause. Surely if anyone deserves her protection, it’s him.

_Let me save him. Let me be enough for that._

Fjord doesn’t know if the Wildmother hears his prayer. He’s not even sure, after all of this, if she’s real. But hope is far-fleeting, and this is the last one he has left.

With the echo of silence ringing in his ears, he gathers himself, and steps out from behind the curtain, and goes.

The hallways are entirely deserted as Fjord makes his way up to the second floor, towards the throne room. Everyone is either engaged in preparations for later points in the day or already within. He hearkens towards the sounds of murmuring voices, his hand slipping to the dagger with every few steps: a helpless compulsion to know that it’s still there, and a ritual to keep his racing heart at bay. 

The archway is before him. The many voices gathered within now fall silent, as a single flute begins to trill a bright melody. 

He steps through.

Benches are laid against the walls, allowing seats to whoever needs them, but most of the company stands in clusters, facing the central dais. Fjord’s breath catches in his throat as he spies Caduceus in his wedding finery standing before the throne, as radiant as sunlight piercing stained glass. He wears a coat of soft lilac over white cotton, embroidered with all the vines and flowers of the painted menagerie that graced his door, and his pale hair flows long and loose beneath a coronet of woven braids and daffodils. 

Sabian looks every bit the dashing husband at his side, handsome in his military regalia: a belted tunic of crisp navy, with his ornate scabbard ever by his side. As he looks up at Caduceus, his adoring smile is as sincere as any man could muster, and Fjord can’t blame the crowd for believing the affection to be true. All around him are looks of rapture and excitement as Sabian reaches out and takes Caduceus’s hands in his own. It’s only then that Caduceus looks down, meeting Sabian’s loving gaze with a smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes. 

Fjord spies a noble or two wiping away an errant tear. He swallows his own, and carefully begins to move forward through the crowd. Thankfully, the officiant chooses that moment to hush the flautist and start the ceremony, and barely anyone takes notice of his unremarkable figure stepping through their midst, not with such elegance to hold their attention.

Once he’s closer to the front, he starts to see people he recognizes. A couple of the gate guards congregate against the wall. They’re flanked by a crew of kitchen staff, with Jester at their helm, beautiful as ever in a lacy pink gown and more so for the sunny smile she wears as she gazes at the pair at the front. If he dared walk closer, Fjord imagines he’d hear a wistful sigh passing her lips every few moments. But there’s a distance in her eyes too - a little sadness, beneath all the joy, though she keeps it hidden well enough.

Close to Jester stands Beau, still dressed in field clothing despite the formality of the occasion. Her crook leans against the wall at her side, her arms crossed over her chest. Out of everyone here, her mood seems the most foul, and she stares at Sabian and Caduceus with unchecked displeasure. Fjord looks for Caleb, wondering if his expression will mirror Beau’s, but though nearly every other office is present, the groundsmaster is nowhere to be seen.

Fjord shrugs off his confusion at Caleb’s absence. The less people here likely to question his presence, the better. More important are the positions of the guards: mostly against the walls - watching, but not particularly alert. If he moves quickly, he can reach Sabian before any of them have a chance to react. 

Fjord’s stomach lurches as his fingers tighten around the outline of the dagger hilt. 

He’s never killed someone before. 

He’s held a crewmate while they died in his arms, fought desperately to close a gaping wound, pressed cloth between a man’s lips as the surgeon brought the knife down and severed an arm too mangled to save. He doesn’t fear blood, or the awful, gurgling noises of a man choking on the viscera that once sustained him.

But he’s never killed someone before.

On legs that don’t feel like his own, Fjord steps forward once more, until he’s mere feet from breaching the front line of wedding guests.

Though his target is Sabian, Fjord’s eyes wander back to Caduceus again and again, treasuring up the last details he can glean, before it all goes away: the pink strands of his hair, shimmering amidst all the white; the lines at the corner of his eyes, badges of wisdom more than age; the birthmark between the second and third knuckles of his right hand, that looks so much like a bird when he wraps his fingers around a trowel, or the rail of a ladder, held unshakeably firm. 

Sabian’s eyes are still fixed on Caduceus, but as Fjord watches, Caduceus’s own drift, his gaze sliding away from his betrothed to look out over the crowd. His expression slips from one of attempted pleasure to abject confusion, as though he’s woken to find himself in a place he doesn’t recognize, with no understanding of how he got there. He looks as lost as Fjord feels, standing on the dias before a ring of thrones, hand in hand with another man - and so utterly alone.

Too late, Fjord realizes the danger of his position. While he’d been watching Caduceus, he hadn’t stopped moving forward, and so he breaks the final line of guests at the exact moment that Caduceus’s persual reaches the centre of the crowd. 

Fjord freezes at Caduceus’s eyes land on him, then widen. His hands fall away from Sabian’s as he turns full body to stare at Fjord. Slowly, the rest of the crowd around him turns to look as well, drifting apart until he’s standing in the middle of a clearing, with nothing but empty space behind, and the dias before him. 

Sabian looks down first at his empty hands, then back up at Caduceus in confusion. He turns as well, following Caduceus’s eyes until they land on Fjord, and his breath comes in with one sharp gasp.

It’s now or never. He has moments before Sabian cries for the guards to seize him, a whisper of a chance in a moment of shock. But Caduceus is still staring at him, and he can’t seem to make his hand move to draw the dagger. Fjord can’t do _anything,_ as murmurs begin to ripple out through the crowd, and as Sabian begins to raise his hand-

Caduceus moves first. He steps away from Sabian, whose hand is too slow to catch Caduceus as he alights the steps down to the main floor. All murmurings hush as Caduceus approaches, and Fjord cannot, he _cannot_ move. Fear and uncertainty war in his chest as he tries and fails to parse Caduceus’s intentions in the dreamlike surrealism of the moment. Will he be told to wait quietly in the back, so they can talk after the ceremony is done? Or will he simply be thrown out?

Caduceus finds him in the emptiness, the two of them the only occupants of the silent clearing amidst the crowd. He reaches up his hand towards Fjord, then lets it linger in the air between them, as though afraid to shatter an illusion with his touch.

“You came back,” Caduceus breathes, unbelieving, but filled with so much _wonder._ “You came back.”

Fjord’s hands begin to shake, and only then does Caduceus reach forward and take them, not loosely as he did with Sabian’s, but as tight as he ever gripped the ladder, to keep Fjord safe and secure as he climbed towards the greenhouse’s roof.

“I asked her for a sign, and now you’re here, when I thought you were gone forever.” His voice drops to a low rumble, meant only for their ears. “I’m so sorry, Fjord. I’m sorry that I lied. And I’m sorry that I spent so much time waiting for a sign, when you were there all along.”

“It’s alright,” Fjord says, blinking rapidly, trembling within the hands around his, overwhelmed and not understanding. Reassurance is all he can think to offer. “You don’t have to- It’s fine-”

“It’s not,” Caduceus says firmly. “But I want to make it right, if I still can.” 

He raises his voice, loud enough for everyone in the room to hear. Fjord has never heard him speak at such a volume, though it’s far from a shout. It’s more like… a declaration. 

“I don’t know if this marriage will save the Savalirwood. I don’t know if it’s the right thing to do for my country, or my family. Maybe it is, and I’m about to make a _truly_ enormous mistake.” Caduceus swallows. If there was meant to be humour in the pronouncement, it doesn’t quite reach past the fear. “But I do know that you helped me build a sanctuary to the Wildmother. I know that together, we gave her a greenhouse deserving of her name. We brought her back to that small space, and I don’t know what else we could do, together, but I want to find out.” 

Caduceus takes a deep breath. When he exhales, it’s like the weight of a hundred stones have fallen from his shoulders, scattered on the ground at Fjord’s feet. “You’re not my servant, Fjord, and I am more angry with myself than you can know, that I made you doubt that. You’re- you’re the man I love, and if you would still have me,” Caduceus’s eyes waver with sudden uncertainty, but his words never falter in their insistence, “then here, not in secret, but in front of all the world, I choose _you.”_

Fjord feels, rather than sees, the people around him return to life, re-emerging from their breathless silence with the end of Caduceus’s speech. A clamour builds as the understanding of his words ripples out into the farthest corners of the room, filled with dignitaries and friends, with princes and paupers alike, all there to bear witness to the declaration.

That someone, impossibly, loves Fjord enough to say it out loud.

Desperately blinking through the burning behind his eyes, Fjord realizes only after a long pause that Caduceus is still looking at him, unmoved - neither drawing back or leaning in. Waiting, it seems, for Fjord’s answer.

It’s his choice to stay or go. To be someone’s, or no one’s at all. No orders, no requirements, no hand around his throat, reminding him of the correct decision, telling him the right thing to say.

It’s his choice, alone.

“If you really want me,” Fjord whispers, “then I choose you too.”

Relief floods over Caduceus’s face as the crowd’s clamour raises again. “I do,” he murmurs, “more than anything else in the world.” 

Then he leans down, and Fjord only just has the foresight to close his eyes before Caduceus’s lips press to his.

Fjord has been kissed once or twice in his life. It was never something he particularly longed to try again. But he didn’t realize it could feel like _this_ \- slow, gentle, warming from head to toe. He nuzzles into Caduceus’s mouth, forgetting for a moment that Sabian is watching, that a whole _room_ of people are watching, as he loses himself in the press of soft fur to his cheek, in the soothing weight of broad hands cupping his jaw, in the tangle of his own fingers amidst hair and viney ornament, in the smell of fresh earth drifting in from the window, light on the breeze that wasn’t there a moment before.

They break apart at last, but the tingling in his mouth doesn’t fade. Fjord’s eyes slowly drift open, then widen immediately, as another collective gasp rings around the room. Even Sabian is momentarily struck dumb, staring at the two of them with slack-jawed disbelief.

The man facing him is still Caduceus, but changed. The light catches in different angles of his face, and a blush blooms in his cheeks, grey sallowness filling out into a rosy shade of health. Fjord reaches out and brushes away Caduceus’s long hair, trying to get a better look, and colour flows from his touch like spilled paint. White strands turn to rose wherever his hands meet, dry strands lengthening and curling into soft waves around Caduceus’s shoulders. 

Caduceus looks down in equal amazement, lifting a hand to examine the thick pink fur over his knuckles that’s started to replace the wiry white fuzz that was there before. When he looks back at Fjord, his voice is reverent, and he gazes with all the wonder of one who’s seen a god appear before his eyes.

“Who are you?” 

The answer comes too easily, for once, and Fjord trips over the ingrained reply. 

_Nobody. Nothing. Whatever you tell me I am._

But as he lifts his eyes, he sees a new world all around him. Beau, pushed off the wall and mouth hanging agape. Jester, with her hands hiding her expression, but her eyes smiling so, so bright. Caduceus before him, looking down with such admiration, like Fjord is something precious beyond understanding.

And Sabian, glare renewed, and filled with hatred beyond measure. His eyes flash a warning, the same Fjord’s heard so many times before.

_Who do you think they will believe, Fjord?_

_Who would believe_ you, _over_ me?

All his life he has been a liar, because that’s what he was told he was, and whatever was expected of him, he became.

But it was _them_ who lied. It was Nurse, it was the king, it was _Sabian,_ over and over and over again.

_They won’t believe you,_ the ghost of memories whispers in his ear, and Fjord drowns him out with a list of names, of every person who has shown him nothing but trust, and kindness, and love.

_Nila, Kitor, Asar, Jester, Yasha, Beau. Caleb. Nott. Wursh._

_Caduceus._

They might not believe him.

But then again, maybe they just might. 

The only thing he knows, without a shadow of a doubt, is that he doesn’t believe Sabian anymore. 

“I’m who I told you I was. I’m a sailor from the Menagerie Coast. My name’s Fjord, I never had another - though the groundsmaster always used to call me ‘Stone’, to remind me of my place.” He chuckles, still half-ashamed at the admission, and Caduceus’s eyes widen impossibly larger. “That’s all true. But before that… I was raised in Port Damali. Actually, not in the city. I grew up in the castle, with Sabian.” A low growl emits from the dais, and Fjord keeps his eyes on Caduceus, not daring to look and lose his courage in the process. “I lived there because I… I’m the crown prince of Port Damali.”

For a moment, the only sound within the throne room is a single excited squeal, only barely covered by blue hands. Caduceus stares at Fjord, opening his mouth, but before he can utter a single word of response, Sabian cuts him off.

“Fjord,” he sneers, “so _this_ is where you’ve been hiding all this time.” He steps down from the dais. “Prince Caduceus, don’t listen to a word this man says. This liar is someone I once called my friend, before he decided he wanted my crown. He followed me from Port Damali to Savalir, trading in my good memories of our time together as children, all the while planning to raise a mutiny at sea so that he could take my place. Clearly, he’s managed to hoodwink you as well. I beg of you, don’t make the same mistake I did. As charming as he seems, he’s not to be trusted.”

“A mutiny, eh?” Fjord turns his head at the sound of a new voice, to find Caleb stepping through the crowd behind him. He barely even glances at Fjord, instead moving off to the side of Caduceus, bowing slightly to his sovereign before turning back to Sabian. “How did the rest of the crew react?”

“They stayed loyal to their true prince, thankfully, for all our sakes. Their captain agreed to take Fjord here back to Port Damali, to be tried for treason - a task they evidently failed in. I’d suggest we call them here, to testify that I’ve told you true, but I’m sorry, they must be almost back to the Menagerie Coast by now, and I have no way to contact them.”

“Perhaps,” says Caleb, and raises a hand. The rest of the crowd shifts to let a larger figure step through: Yasha, still in traveling clothes, with dust on her feet and dried sweat on her brow. “But my information tells a different story.” He turns and murmurs to Caduceus, “This is why I wanted to wait. I sent Yasha to the coast to see if we could learn a bit about our new prince’s temperament from any sailors that might have stayed behind after the ship docked. I know that’s more than I shared before, but until I knew for sure, I didn’t want to risk a political incident. My suspicions turn out so often to be nothing more than paranoia.” He raises his voice to the crowd again. “Shall we hear what Yasha has to say?”

“No Port Damali ship never docked,” Yasha explains, her cold gaze fixed on Sabian even as her mouth addresses Caleb. “I asked around, and the only boat that came in around the right time was a skiff laden with soldiers. But a traveller did say she’d seen wreckage of a ship washing up farther up the coast.” Fjord draws in a ragged breath. He suspects he already knows where this story ends, but his mind still rebels against hearing it put into words. “I paid the woman to take me there. We found splintered timbers on the beach, with burnt holes, and many bodies.” Yasha pauses. “She told me that it looked as though the ship had been scuttled. Sunk intentionally.”

Fjord bows his head as a pang of grief wrenches its way through his heart. He’s not horrified - horror requires disbelief, and he utterly believes this casual disregard of life of Sabian, after everything else he’s done. But to think, not just of Vandran perished, but his whole crew gone… is there anything Sabian wasn’t willing to do, to get his own way?

“Why,” asks Caleb, pretending at little more than curiousity in the offhand question, but Fjord hears the careful calculation beneath his words, “would the crew scuttle their own ship?”

Sabian’s own act of earnest beseeching doesn’t slip, but Fjord begins to notice tension brimming in his clenched hands. 

“I cannot say why. It’s true,” he says, looking from Caleb back to Caduceus, “that we did not dock. I didn’t want to raise a scene on my arrival. All those common people, eager to see a royal party for the first time in their lives - such high emotion can turn to violence so easily.”

_In Port Damali,_ Fjord thinks, _but not here, where the prince goes out amongst his people and listens to their complaints, instead of hiding himself away from the rabble,_ and Sabian’s confidence falters as Caduceus’s expression remains unmoved from its carefully considering state.

“I do not know what became of the ship after I left,” he repeat, then his eyes light up, and Fjord knows him well enough to see the tell-tale signs of an idea taking shape within his mind. “Though maybe we have the culprit right here?” Sabian points an accusing finger at Fjord. “How else could he have escaped and found his way back here, unless he dispatched the crew?”

“If you knew there was a man out there who attempted to impersonate you, why didn’t you inform us on your arrival?” Caleb presses again. “Surely that would be pertinent information to share, so we could ensure your safety?”

“I never thought it would be an issue. I wanted the matter to be done with. I thought it was. Clearly,” says Sabian, glaring straight at Fjord, “I underestimated him.” The look promises a reckoning to come, and Fjord’s heart tightens once more. “If I had known there was any chance he would turn up in Savalir, I would have told you. You have my word, Groundsmaster.”

“That’s strange.” Another voice joins the throng, as out of the crowd slips a short figure in a black cloak. Somehow, Fjord had missed her in his perusal of the crowd - though maybe it’s not so surprising, from a woman who spends so much time trying not to be seen. Nott pulls her hood back just far enough to reveal her face, and Sabian’s lip curls back almost imperceptibly at the sight of the goblin beneath. “Because I’m pretty sure I saw you leaving Fjord’s cabin about a week ago?”

“You must be mistaken,” Sabian sneers.

“Maybe. But goblins see _very_ well in the dark.” Nott grins, baring a not-insignificant number of teeth in the process. “I don’t get out much, but I see a _lot_ of things.”

“Would you honestly believe the word of a- a _goblin_ over a prince?” Sabian says to Caleb incredulously, not even vitriolic so much as disbelieving.

“I believe her in everything,” Caleb responds without a second’s hesitation, and Fjord wonders how it is that Sabian could have lived here a month and not know that Caleb handpicks his employees - that he trusts them implicitly, or they would not be within the castle walls. It seems a foolish blunder in Sabian’s hereto adept set of lies. 

But of course, Sabian would have made no effort to get to know the staff, or their connections, or who cared for whom. What did they matter, in the grand scheme of his life? Why should he bother to know anything about mere servants?

“That was the night I came to see you. He told me he’d kill you if I didn’t go,” Fjord says to Caduceus, suddenly desperate that he understand that Fjord didn’t leave of his own free will.

_“Liar,”_ Sabian snarls, and Fjord whirls to him, anger blazing, for once with its proper target in full view.

“You kept who I was from me! For my whole life you told me I was beneath you, when you _knew._ You _knew,_ ” Fjord says, more reckless than he should be, and too outraged to care. “I’m not a liar. _You_ are.”

“Alright, let’s all just take a breath.” Caduceus’s steady voice cuts through the mounting escalation. Fjord struggles to do as he asks, watching Sabian do the same. “Let’s calm down now.” He steps between the two of them, rising to every inch of his height, until there’s no one in the room who doesn’t feel the majesty of his royal presence as he towers above them all. “Prince Sabian,” he says, his soft smile pleasant, but brittle, unlike any Fjord’s ever seen him wear, “I only have one more question, and then we can put all of this to bed.” Sabian straightens, nodding. “In your opinion, what would be the appropriate punishment, for a man who pretends to be a prince?”

Sabian isn’t uncouth enough to grin, but the triumph is written all over his face. He places his finger to his chin, considering the matter with a show of solemnity. 

“In Port Damali, high treason of that sort would be met with the harshest punishment. He would be nailed inside a barrel, stuck through with spikes, and paraded around the city, so every citizen would know his fate.” A few people press their hands to their mouths. Fjord’s stomach jolts at the gory depiction. He looks to Caduceus, certain he… 

He wouldn’t… 

“But I’m aware that’s not the way of Savalir. Your people are gentler, and I want to respect the customs of my future subjects.” Sabian’s eyes flicker to Fjord, and the cruelty he sees in them is unmistakable from the resentment he knew when they were children - never grown past infancy, never changing. 

Sabian will always be the boy eagerly awaiting the shepherd’s bloody end, but Fjord doesn’t fear wolves like he used to. 

“I say, let that man be locked in a cell for the rest of his days, with no window to the outside world, no candle to see by, and no friends to call his own. For wanting all the world that did not belong to him, he should have none of it. That would be a fitting punishment, in my eyes.”

Caduceus nods. “Thank you for your answer - it was very illuminating. I agree that the punishment seems very fitting.” He inclines his head. “Yasha. You heard the man.”

She steps forward, up to Fjord, then past him. He and Sabian realize in the same moment who she’s heading towards, and Sabian takes a half-step back, eyes narrowed with betrayal, and rage. 

Only because he was watching for it is Fjord able to call out a warning in time, before Sabian reaches to his side and draws his blade. 

“The sword’s poisoned!” he yells, and the crowd scatters to the walls as screams erupt from all sides. Yasha abruptly changes course, putting her body between Caduceus and Sabian as he wheels in place, pointing the envenomed tip at anyone who draws too close. 

Once everyone else has stilled, the rapier finds its true mark - aimed directly at Fjord’s heart, as Sabian advances.

“You!” he snarls. “ _You_ did this to me! You’ve taken _everything_ that’s mine!”

“I never took a thing from you!” Fjord shouts back. He feels below his shirt for the dagger, drawing it out. Its short length is nothing compared to the three and a half feet of steel angling towards his chest. 

There’s no one between them now. The part of the crowd that hasn’t fled through the archway is too frightened to leap in the path of a poisoned blade. Fjord can see Caduceus straining to reach him from the corner of his eye, but Yasha holds him back. She does her duty without compromising, keeping her monarch out of harm’s way, and for that, Fjord couldn’t be more grateful to her.

“Why couldn’t you have died?” Sabian says, and Fjord has never seen such quiet desperation from him, mixed with so much _loathing._ The hand that holds the blade is shaking, but then again, Sabian killed Vandran with unsteady hands. Emotion won’t stop his blade from striking true. “Why are you still here?”

If Sabian wants Fjord to beg for his life, he won’t have that satisfaction. He’s done begging for scraps of kindness instead of cruelty, when he knows now there are people who will treat him well, for kindness’s sake alone.

“I’m still here because I decided to try to make the best of what I had, even when it was nothing. Did you even _try_ to be happy, Sabian? Or were you too obsessed over how much _my_ happiness was costing you?”

He knows he’s crossed the line when Sabian growls, an animalistic, enraged noise, and Fjord brings the dagger up, knowing full well it won’t do any good. Wursh didn’t teach him how to parry a rapier’s strike - how would he have known, if Fjord didn’t tell him? 

Fjord holds his ground, preparing for the burn of pain once more as Sabian lunges forward.

The strike doesn’t connect. Suddenly, there’s a whirl of blue fabric before him, the sound of metal sliding against wood, then the heavy crack of a blow impacting sensitive organs. Sabian stumbles backwards, cursing, as Beau rights herself in front of Fjord. She twirls her crook twice before sinking into a defensive stance.

“I’ve got you,” she calls over her shoulder, grinning, and a moment later, Jester runs up to Beau’s side. There are no weapons in her hands, but the sight of her bared fists and solid muscles flexing beneath layers of pink taffeta are intimidating enough.

“We’ll protect you, Fjord!” she cries, as the two of them form an impenetrable wall between him and Sabian. 

“Don’t-” he tries to warn them, but Beau only tightens her grip on the crook. 

“Knew all that training was going to come in handy someday,” she grins, but stoic concentration wins out as Sabian finally rights himself, raising the blade towards Beau-

Sabian freezes in place, as the telltale _click_ of a metal latch locking into place echoes throughout the throne room.

“Drop it.”

He turns his head back slowly. There on the dais, hood thrown back and holding a crossbow that’s far from a child’s toy, stands Nott. The bolt locked within is sharpened to a deadly point, and her aim is steady as she points the weapon at Sabian’s head.

“Or don’t,” she says, and a wicked gleam passes behind her yellow eyes as her finger twitches across the trigger. 

Fjord doesn’t doubt for a second that she’ll pull it. And apparently, neither does Sabian. His sword clatters to the floor, shoulders slumping in defeat. Yasha rushes forward to pull his arms behind his back as Beau catches the ring of the hilt with her crook, dragging the sword back until it’s safely pressed pinned beneath her foot. Nott jumps off the dias, circling around until her crossbow’s aim is unobstructed once more. 

Caduceus, released from Yasha’s care at last, rushes to Fjord’s side. “Are you hurt?” he asks anxiously, looking Fjord over for injuries. “I can heal you, I can-”

“I’m alright, Caduceus,” he says, quieting him the same way Caduceus did in the greenhouse, soothing down his arms with his hands until Caduceus lets out a shuddering breath. “I’m alright.”

With Sabian in Yasha’s custody, with Beau and Jester and Nott guarding his front, and Caduceus at his side… he’s better than he’s ever been.

Caleb walks over to Yasha, muttering something to her about appropriate holding quarters and guards until a cell can be arranged. Sabian ignores him, his cold, vicious glare still fixated on Fjord. Though the fight is gone from his body, he still spews hatred in every breath.

“Do you think you’ll have it all, Fjord?” he hisses. “Do you think someone like you gets a happy ending? How long before your previous prince tires of you, and moves on to someone prettier to look at than an ugly, stupid _half-breed-”_

A _twang_ rings out, and Sabian’s insults are cut off by a cry of pain. He recoils back into Yasha’s arms, blood seeping from the place between shoulder and collarbone where an iron bolt now protrudes. 

“Whoops. Finger must have slipped,” Nott says casually. She loads another bolt, and raises the crossbow again. 

That’s the last they hear from Sabian from that point on.

At last, the false prince is put into chains and taken out of the room, leaving the rest of them to look at each other in silence as the dust settles. Most of the crowd has fled by this point. Apart from a few stragglers, there’s only Fjord left, and all the people he’d thought he’d lost forever: Caleb, proudly ruffling Nott’s hair; Jester, trying to scrub Sabian’s blood off Yasha’s clothes; Beau at Fjord’s side, poking and prodding, and chiding him for leaving without saying goodbye.

“I was under duress, Beau.”

“Still,” she huffs. “You got me worried. Just… shit, don’t do it again.”

He doesn’t know how to say how much her worry means to him, but he leans his head on her shoulder for a brief moment, and her surprised look is enough for him to know he’s been heard.

And then there’s Caduceus. In the hubbub of Sabian’s departure, he’d moved to the window where he stands now. Fjord cautiously wanders up to his side, not quite sure where they stand, now that all is said and done. Should Fjord take his arm, or give him space? So instead, he follows his gaze out across the city, towards the line of diseased trees at the Savalirwood’s border.

Except… Fjord squints. This can’t be the same view he saw from Caduceus’s window. For a moment, he’s not sure he’s looking at the same forest at all.

The black and bitter stumps are gone, and where they stood are towering trees, their boughs blossoming pink and white buds that dot the dark expanse of the forest like starlight. As Fjord watches, more buds spring forth, more trees unfurl their wide branches as the forest returns to life. Cries of amazement start to rise from all corners of the town, as people step from their houses and children clamber onto rooftops to get a better look at the miracle surrounding them.

“The curse is broken,” Caduceus breathes. “It’s over.” He turns to Fjord, smile exultant, and though he was beautiful before, Fjord can finally fully appreciate it without the worry of evident illness to distract him. His mind goes a little fuzzy around the edges. “We did it.”

“We?” Fjord croaks, and tries to swallow some moisture back into his throat. “How?”

Caduceus stares down at him, nonplussed, like there’s something obvious Fjord’s missing. “The prophecy?”

“Still not following,” Fjord says slowly. “Thought you needed to get the stone back from Port Damali to break the curse.” He looks around. “Did Sabian bring it with him?”

“ _You’re_ the ‘Stone’, Fjord,” Caduceus says, and pats Fjord’s arm consolingly as he blinks once, twice… then finally understands.

“Oh,” he says weakly. “Yeah. I guess… guess I am.”

“ _Oh_ my gosh!” cries Jester, running up behind them and pulling them both into a three-leveled hug. “That was _so beautiful._ Are you guys going to get married now, and move into the tower, and love each other forever?”

Fjord looks up at Caduceus. Caduceus smiles down at him as he answers, “It’s not a cottage, but I hear there’s a garden here that still needs us.” 

“It’ll be a lot of work,” Fjord muses, thinking of the tangled mess that surrounds the greenhouse. They’ve made a start, but there’s still a lot more to do.

“It’s worth it,” Caduceus says, and leans down for another kiss. Fjord happily accepts, as Jester babbles on about all the strawberries she’ll need to make an even _cooler_ cake for their wedding, but everyone better still eat the one she made today, because it was a lot of work-

Through the window, a single white blossom drifts in and lands on Fjord’s shoulder. He doesn’t notice, but a warmth fills him in that moment, as the rippling breeze whispers in his ear in a sweet, motherly voice, welcoming him home at last.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Only the epilogue left now! Thank you so much, everyone, for sticking with me through this story! I can't believe it's almost over *cries*


	18. Pergola (The World)

The grave is unmarked. Insignificant, compared to the grandeur of the royal coffin, laid within its golden mausoleum just hours before. Nothing more than a bare patch of soil, covered by brambles that no one bothers to tend. 

Fjord is still dressed in his funereal blacks, but the fine coat has been shed, left in an attendant’s care the moment decorum allowed him to surrender the garment. No longer held beneath starched collars and angular pleats, his loose shirt catches in the wind that whistles through the outskirts of the castle grounds, drawing against the skin.

He had meant to come another day, but through all the pomp and circumstance, the dirges and serenades, the spectacular hours of glory and ceremony and honour due a king departed, his mind had only wandered here - to the place the servants told him, days before, that another body lay.

Caduceus’s shadow falls over his shoulder. He stands a respectful distance away, but close enough to reach out, if either should need it. His own clothing is lighter, more colourful than Fjord’s: not solemn and dreary, but bright. Death, Fjord has come to learn, is more about remembrance than grief in Savalir, and Caduceus carries the custom with him, even to this new land - unknown to him, and so very familiar to Fjord.

“Who was he?” Caduceus asks. Fjord hadn’t told him whose grave they came to visit. He hadn’t said a word, in fact. He’d just taken his husband’s hand and led him away from the procession, through the hidden paths within Port Damali’s castle that only a servant would know, and Caduceus had followed without question. 

The grave is unmarked. No etching, declaring a name to be remembered by all the world, as the king of Port Damali had required above his own resting place, for all the good it would do him. Sabian is gone, and with him died the king’s name, for Fjord would not claim it, not for the sake of a parent who refused to claim him. 

He’d thought, many years ago, that the king might fight for Sabian. Surely, he must have had  _ some  _ love for the boy he once called his own - if not enough to insist on his position, then enough to beg for his release. But throughout every piece of correspondence between the two kingdoms, political maneuvering presided over sentiment, and when it became clear the alliance would only stand so long as Fjord was acknowledged as rightful heir, the king relented without another word on the matter. There was no care for the fate of his sometimes-son; Sabian was forgotten, abandoned, as surely as Fjord once was. 

And while Fjord’s heart was still unmoved towards Sabian, for all the pain and death he had caused were too much for him to forgive, it had become a little kinder towards himself - to understand he was not the only one who could be thrown aside so easily, in the face of greater ambition.

He still hasn’t answered Caduceus’s question. He doesn’t have to, if that’s what he chooses. The grave is unmarked. If Fjord stays silent, the name dies with him, and so too does the memory - forever locked within his chest, never uttered aloud. Caduceus wouldn’t begrudge him his silence. He knows there are things in Fjord’s childhood that are too painful to speak of, and understands, with a patience Fjord wishes he was capable of emulating.

He doesn’t have to answer. 

But names, Fjord has discovered, are important. And this one has had power over him long enough.

“He was called Uk’otoa,” he says at last. “He was the groundsmaster, here at the castle.”

Fjord is ten years older now than when they first met. The white in Caduceus’s hair has migrated to his own, grey streaks amid black showing steady signs of age. 

He’d thought he’d outgrown the way his voice used to shake, when he was afraid. 

But Caduceus reaches out and takes his hand - still as loving as the day they married, still as supportive as the day they met. And though it’s difficult,  _ impossible, _ to say the things he’s spent his whole life not saying, he knows Caduceus will wait patiently until he finds his words again. That, alone, gives him strength enough to speak.

With faltering voice, he tells Caduceus about the man. How he abused the people in his care, but none more than Fjord, for he had no one who would protect him. How he taught Fjord to believe he was less than nothing, worthwhile only when following another’s command.

He speaks, and Caduceus draws closer, his hand in Fjord’s becoming an arm around his, becoming a tight embrace. He doesn’t need Caduceus to say it wasn’t his fault; he knows that already. He doesn’t need Caduceus to say he’s worth so much more than Uk’otoa told him he was; he has proof, in long years of friendship and and family, and a kingdom prospering beneath their joint rule, that it must be true. 

He doesn’t need it, but it helps, all the same.

When the hardest parts have past, and the tears have dried away from both their cheeks, he tells him the easier things: about going to the docks disguised in commoner clothes, to find out what he could about Vandran, and understand at last what compelled him to save a poor servant boy all those years ago. He discovered that Vandran and Uk’otoa had been business partners, years before Fjord was born, but Vandran had seen how he mistreated his employees, and expelled Uk’otoa from his fleet. His name smeared, Vandran’s warnings ringing in the ears of anyone who would listen, he could find no work under another captain’s flag. So he laid low within the castle instead, the only place that would take him, nursing his bitterness, and teaching fear to orphans instead of cabin boys.

And Caduceus listens, and listens, and when all tales are told, he says, “So what do you want to do now?” 

They both turn back to the grave - unmarked, forgotten. There’s no revenge left to take, when the passage of time has beaten Fjord to it. But he doesn’t think he’d have wanted it, even if he had the chance. 

This part of his past is buried at last, without regret, and he’s happy to let it lie where the wind whistles, but feet no longer tread.

“Should we find your sister?”

Caduceus takes his hand again, and together, they leave the patch of earth to its own, and the brambles to finish their work.

The halls are busy as Fjord remembers them being as a child. A great number of servants dash this way and that, carrying out the last orders of their former monarch, and some of their new ones. Fjord has grown used to the quieter thoroughfare of Savalir’s castle, but he can’t deny there’s a certain rush at being part of the lively group. Whoever was hired after Uk’otoa’s death, the palace has seen an improvement in internal leadership in latter years, judging by the mended clothes and unbruised cheeks he passes. For the first time since arriving in port, he wears a smile that isn’t held in place by needles beneath his skin.

With the passing of the king, these halls are his now, and Caduceus’s: heirs to realms on opposite sides of the world. Those who might once have looked on him with disdain now bow to him with respect, the golden crown on his head a visible proof of station, and enough to override any lingering resentment at what lies beneath. He hopes, one day, he can earn their respect for more than just the crown, but for the man beneath it. 

It may take time, but they have it - six months of it, for now. Caduceus had suggested longer, but even lighter as he feels after their visit to the grave, Fjord thinks he’ll be tired of Port Damali by then, and longing for the unfettered memories of Savalir, which he now calls home. 

Six months, for now, and maybe longer... someday.

They find Calliope in the king’s office, sorting through stacks of disorganized paperwork with a disgruntled scowl. “Told you we should have brought Caleb along,” Fjord says, nudging Caduceus’s shoulder with a grin, and Calliope looks up at him despairingly.

“I don’t know why I let you convince me to do this.”

“There’s nobody better for the job,” Caduceus answers, and Fjord smiles all the more. No need to tell her that Clarabelle was Caduceus’s first choice, and it was Fjord who gently pushed him to consider Calliope instead. Her forceful personality is better suited to the hard-headed people of Port Damali, where their newly-instated regent needs to be able to stand her ground, when the authority of their dual crowns aren’t there to back her own.

Neither had considered asking Colton, a fact which Fjord is sure his brother-in-law is still bitter over. Ah, well. He’ll have six months of governing Savalir alone to nurse his bruised ego.

He’d been the first to come back, in the end, with Clarabelle on his heels. Colton claimed he’d heard tell that the Savalirwood was cured from a passing merchant, and his brother married as well. Clarabelle swore she could feel it, the moment when things were set right. Fjord, after witnessing so many miracles in his life, is inclined to believe them both.

It took far longer to discover where Calliope and her father were imprisoned, locked within the gaol of a despotic ruler, and by that time, Cornelius was so weak that he did not survive the journey home. There was pain, of course, and sadness, but healing too, in being able to hold Caduceus while he said goodbye, and knowing that together, they would survive the loss. 

The last of the Clays - Constance and Corrin - are missing still. But Fjord believes they’ll find them. He has faith that they will.

It’s a new thing, faith. But like their finished garden, flourishing under a careful hand, it’s a growing thing too.

“Where’s Belle?” Caduceus asks, and Calliope snorts.

“Down by the water, where else? Waiting for you two, I’m sure. Better get a move on, before she starts without you.”

Fjord looks down at the landslide of work before Calliope in sympathy. 

“Sure we can’t give you a hand first?”

“See, this is why I like your husband better than you,” Calliope teases. Caduceus sticks out his tongue, and Fjord laughs. This playful side of Caduceus, that comes out around his siblings, he’ll never tire of it. “But no, I’m alright. Better I know where everything is, if I’m the one who’s going to be dealing with it.”

“Thanks, Calliope.”

“Yeah, yeah. Get moving.”

Fjord nods his goodbye, and the two of them head for the docks as she instructed. The day after, they go down again, and the day after that. It becomes a month of trips to the harbour - scouting for locations, consulting with local sailors and merchants, laying down coin and arranging contracts. While Caduceus knew Savalir’s goings-on better than anyone, this is Fjord’s bread and butter, his life before this new one, and after too long an absence, he takes to the tedious process with relish. 

They pass by familiar gates each night, when the sun is near to setting. Long shadows draw out from wrought iron enclosures, and Fjord looks at the Driftwood Asylum with older eyes, as Caduceus asks a question, and he says,  _ not yet, but soon.  _

_ Not yet,  _ because he won’t bring another child into Port Damali’s halls, not after what he suffered there.

_ Soon, _ because he too wonders what it would be like to hear the  _ thump _ of little feet tramping all over Savalir’s grounds, brought up in wildberry thickets and open fields instead of stone walls.

“How many?” Caduceus muses.

“How- how many were you thinking?” Fjord replies, losing a step in the process. Even after all these years, his husband can still surprise him. Honestly, he hadn’t thought past one.

“We have room,” Caduceus reminds him, and Fjord thinks of all the empty walkways, the beautiful rooms left to dust and decline. He thinks of all they’ve accomplished in the last ten years - the families reunited, the debts settled, the fathers brought home. He thinks of the love shown to him, and contemplates how much more he has to give. How much space is there now in his heart, that fear vacated and left free for the taking?

“We have room,” he agrees, and pulls his husband close, for as much love as he has within him, there’s always space for a little more.

They’ve been in Port Damali almost four months to the day when at last, all the preparations are in place. Clarabelle walks by their side now, skipping like the child of Caduceus’s memories, though her face and body are close to grown. They left Calliope to knock together the heads of two guards whose quarrel had grown too public, concluding with a shared look that they’d made the right choice after all, and found the path, now familiar to all, down past the market stalls to the harbour. 

The palisades are all but gone, replaced by lanterns on long poles along the water’s edge. The same lanterns light the path through jagged cliffs, burrowed out over months of labour into a roughshod pathway to the peak. 

They climb and higher, lighting atop hewn steps, until they reach the summit, and can see over the whole of Port Damali and beyond. The whole world is all laid before Fjord: white-capped swells and tall trees, forests and rivers and houses and roads leading to far-off places, too distant for mere eyes to see. The expanse is beyond anything he could have understood as a child, and even now, it still takes his breath away.

“Fjord?”

He turns to find Clarabelle - his friend, his  _ sister - _ holding out a single white stone. He takes it, and with one last glance returns to the task at hand, and walks to where Caduceus stands, holding a stone of his own. Before them is a flat impression of turned earth, seven or eight feet deep. Without thought for the state of his clothes, Caduceus drops in, then holds out his hands for Fjord. Feeling foolish, but blushing all the same, he allows himself to be lowered by his husband’s arms. Above them, Clarabelle giggles.

“You ready?” Caduceus asks, and Fjord nods.

Together, they lay the first two stones of a new foundation, of what will soon be hundreds, then thousands, pieced together into the circular shape of a towering lighthouse. It will take years to finish, by Fjord’s calculations - he drew up the plans himself, with Caduceus’s careful help. They may not be here to see it done, but they can make a start. Now the garden is finished, they’ve been looking for a new project, after all.

And it doesn’t really matter if he’s there to see it or not, Fjord thinks, as Clarabelle passes down stone after stone, and they lay them to rest over soft clay. It’ll be enough to know they’ve left something of themselves here.

A tower, standing watch over the city. A beacon, guiding sailors and strangers alike to shore. And a statue of a woman now restored, guarding the eternal flame with arms open wide. Her gentle voice, ferried far out to sea in the undulation of rippling light, and her words of comfort unceasing, for all who need to hear them.

_ This is safety. _

_ This is shelter. _

_ This is home. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _But gin you were dead and I were dead  
>  And both in one grave laid  
> E’re seven years were come and gane  
> They’d ne’er ken **your dust from mine.**_  
>  ~ [The Laird O’ Drum](https://ewanmaccoll.bandcamp.com/track/the-laird-o-drum-child-236), a traditional Scottish ballad

**Author's Note:**

> And with that, we’ve come to the end! Thank you so much to all of you for coming on this journey with me. During a very strange time in all our lives, this story of kindness and happy endings has been a constant comfort, and to everyone who shared their thoughts, their kudos, or just took the time to read, know that I appreciate it more than you know.
> 
> A special thank you to those who made art for this fic - you are WILD talented and I’m still blown away. I’ve added links to the relevant chapters, but for anyone who missed it, please go check out lecruixe’s art for Bloom, and c-kiddo’s art for Adnate.
> 
> I’ll leave you with something a little self-indulgent: possibly the most fun part of this whole process was picking out chapter titles, and I thought I’d share what each of them meant to me. 
> 
> _  
> Gemels - two trees that grow together, often grafting to one another as they age  
>  Espalier - the practice of training trees to grow two-dimensionally, by inhibiting growth in other directions  
> Ballochory - forceful dispersal of seeds from a parental plant, due to internal pressure  
> Oomycete - a microorganism that infects plants by disabling their internal defences against disease  
> Adventitious - roots that grow from unexpected places, often aiding recovery when traditional roots have been damaged by wounds or other stressors  
> Budding - an early stage of outward plant growth  
> Auxin - a hormone that stimulates healthy plant body development  
> Furrow - a breaking of the soil, necessary to make ground ready for planting  
> Bloom - the first flower of a maturing plant  
> Pulque - a sweet alcoholic drink made from fermented agave sap, noted for its resemblance to milk  
> Thigmotropism - the bending of a plant towards touch, overriding even strong gravitational impulses in another direction  
> Adnate - joined by having grown together  
> Convergence - two different species of plant with common characteristics, due to similar environmental pressures  
> Nyctinasty - the tendency of some plants to curl into themselves at night, theorized to be a defence mechanism against nocturnal predators, by making themselves appear smaller than they are  
> Swidden - a field that has been cleared by slashing and burning vegetation, the ash of which replenishes the soil and leaves it more fertile than before  
> Pyrolysis - the change in chemical composition that turns wood to charcoal, through application of high heat  
> Blossom - flowering, a sign that a plant has reached full maturity  
> Pergola - a raised lattice on which vines and withies are grown, whose cover serves as protection and shade, and may also form the link between two pavilions  
> _
> 
> Find me at [mithrilwren](https://mithrilwren.tumblr.com) on Tumblr!


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